Guru

The Universal Teacher

B. P. Puri

• Publisher: Mandala Publishing
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781683832454
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Religione

The founder of Sri Gopinath Gaudiya Math offers wisdom and clarity about the most vital and least understood aspects of the spiritual path: the teacher. This compilation of articles written by Swami B. P. Puri is a handbook for those seeking guidance in their quest for a genuine guru, for those wanting to learn more about the foundational concepts of the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, or for those simply wanting to deepen their spiritual practice. Swami B. P. Puri articulates the qualities and qualifications of both the spiritual teacher and the student disciple. The book describes the proper processes of approaching the spiritual teacher, learning from them, and offering service to them. Guru also explains what students and teachers should avoid in their pursuit of sincere spiritual practice. Firmly rooted in a wealth of ancient Sanskrit and Bengali poetry and accompanied by Swami B. P. Puri's beautiful and elegant translations and commentaries, Guru will be cherished by those with a keen interest in Hindu spirituality.

CHAPTER 1

The Glories of Sri Guru

Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami starts his Caitanya-caritāmṛta with a discussion of guru-tattva. He tells us that Krishna, the source of all incarnations, the avatāri and ultimate object of all service, the viṣaya-vigraha, appears as His own servant, the āśraya-vigraha, in order to show His mercy to the devotees. This is the guru, who mercifully reveals Krishna to his disciples. Since the guru is the āśraya-vigraha, he never claims to be the object of service; nor does he think of himself in this way. Rather, he presents himself as the eternal servant of the servant of the servants of Krishna or Sri Chaitanya, just as Mahaprabhu presented Himself while dancing in front of Lord Jagannatha’s chariot in Puri:

nāhaṁ vipro na ca narapatir nāpi vaiśyo na śūdro

nāhaṁ varṇī na ca gṛhapatir no vanastho yatir vā

kintu prodyan-nikhila-paramānanda-pūrṇāmṛtābdher

gopī-bhartuḥ pada-kamalayor dāsa-dāsānudāsaḥ

I am not a brāhmaṇa, nor a kṣatriya, nor a vaiśya, nor a śūdra. Neither am I a brahmacārī, a householder, a retired man, or a renunciant monk. My real identity is that I am the most insignificant servant of the servant of the servant of the lotus feet of Krishna, the lover of the gopīs and overflowing ocean of supreme and immortal joy. (Caitanya-caritāmṛta 2.13.80, quoted in Padyāvalī 74)

Nevertheless, even though the spiritual master identifies himself as Krishna’s servant, the disciple who wishes to receive the spiritual master’s blessings will look on him with transcendental intelligence as a direct manifestation of Krishna or Sri Chaitanya. Since the spiritual master is Krishna’s most beloved associate, he is not different from Him. Krishna gave this very instruction to Uddhava in Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 11.17.27.

ācāryaṁ māṁ vijānīyān

nāvamanyeta karhicit

na martya buddhyāsūyeta

sarva deva mayo guruḥ

O Uddhava! You should consider the guru to be My very self—that is, the embodiment of love for Me and therefore nondifferent from Me. You should therefore never disrespect him by envying him or thinking him to be an ordinary man, for he is the sum total of all the demigods.

Krishna follows this verse by speaking two others (ŚB 11.17.28 and 29) that give essential information about how an exemplary disciple should serve the spiritual master:

sāyaṁ prātar upānīya

bhaikṣyaṁ tasmai nivedayet

yac cānyad apy anujñātam

upayuñjīta saṁyataḥ

In the morning and evening one should go begging and bring whatever one gathers to the spiritual master. One should then take permission before one himself eats.

śuśrūṣamāṇa ācāryaṁ

sadopāsīta nīca-vat

yāna-śayyāsana-sthānair

nāti-dūre kṛtāñjaliḥ

While engaged in serving the spiritual master one should take the attitude of a humble servant. When the guru is walking, the servant should humbly walk behind. When the guru lies down to sleep, the servant should also lie down nearby, and when the guru has awakened, the servant should sit near him, massaging his lotus feet and rendering other, similar services. When the guru is sitting down on his asana, the servant should stand nearby with folded hands, awaiting the guru’s order. In this way one should always worship the spiritual master.

Raghunatha Das Goswami writes in his Manaḥ-śikṣā that we should think of the guru as the dearest companion of the Lord (mukunda-preṣṭhatve smara). Sri Jiva Prabhu makes a similar statement in the Bhakti-sandarbha (213), “Pure devotees, however, think of both the spiritual master and Lord Shiva as nondifferent from the Lord due to their being most dear to the Lord” (śuddha-bhaktās tv eke śrī-guroḥ śrī-śivasya ca bhagavatā sahābheda-dṛṣṭiṁ tat-priyatamatvenaiva manyante).

Srila Vishwanatha Chakravarti takes up the same theme in the seventh verse of his Gurv-aṣṭakam:

sākṣād-dharitvena samasta-śāstrair

uktas tathā bhāvyata eva sadbhiḥ

kintu prabhor yaḥ priya eva tasya

vande guroḥ śrī-caraṇāravindam

I worship the lotus feet of my spiritual master, who is said by all scriptures to be Lord Hari himself, and is indeed thought of that way by all the saints. But this identity is due to his being very dear to the Lord.

Another way to think of the guru: as the direct manifestation of Srimati Radharani. Similarly, one can see him as Srimati Radharani’s personal companion. My own dear spiritual master, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, identified himself as the servant of the beloved of Srimati Radharani, or Sri Varshabhanavi-dayita Das. He also revealed to his intimate associates that he was in fact Nayanamani Manjari, the companion of Sri Rupa Manjari in kṛṣṇa-līlā. Therefore, we pray to our spiritual master in his identity as Srimati Radharani’s handmaiden:

tvaṁ gopikā vṛṣa-raves tanayāntike’si

sevādhikāriṇi guro nija-pāda-padme

dāsyaṁ pradāya kuru māṁ vraja-kānane śrī-

rādhāṇghri-sevana-rase sukhinīṁ sukhābdhe

O Sri Guru! You remain constantly by the lotus feet of the daughter of Vrishabhanu, where you have been given the right to render service. Please give me the joy of swimming in the ocean of service to Srimati Radharani.

There is also a prāṇam-mantra to the guru in his sakhī form:

rādhā-sammukha-saṁsaktiṁ

sakhī-saṇga-nivāsinīm

tvām ahaṁ satataṁ vande

mādhavāśraya-vigrahām^I

I worship you, my spiritual master, in your form as a gopī living among the other sakhīs, always in the company of Srimati Radharani. You are the repository of love for Madhava.

One of the nine Yogendras, Kavi, spoke to King Nimi as follows:

The Supreme Lord has created a process whereby even the most ignorant and foolish people can attain Him. This process is known as bhāgavata-dharma. Anyone who has faith in this process will never be bewildered. Even if he runs with his eyes closed, he will neither slip nor fall.

Those who are averse to the Lord’s service fall into the grips of His illusory energy and forget their eternal identity. This leads to identification with the material body and further disruption of the intelligence. As a consequence, one becomes absorbed in everything but Krishna, everything that is the nonself. And the result of this is fear.

Therefore an intelligent and discerning individual will make the spiritual master his personal Deity (guru-daivatātmā) and recognize him as his dearmost friend. Following him with this attitude, the disciple should embark on the path of exclusive devotion to the Supreme Lord. Such worship primarily takes the form of loudly glorifying the names of the Lord that are related to his birth and activities without any care for or attachment to what people might think. (ŚB 11.2.34–37)

In the following chapter of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Prabuddha, the next of the nine masters of yoga, continues the discourse on bhāgavata-dharma. He begins, in 11.3.22, by saying that one must take initiation from a spiritual master who is situated in full knowledge of the scriptural form of the Lord, who has had direct experience of the Lord, and who is free from anger, lust, greed, and other base qualities, and then study bhāgavata-dharma under him:

tatra bhāgavatān dharmān

śikṣed gurv-ātma-daivataḥ

amāyayānuvṛttyā yais

tuṣyed ātmātma-do hariḥ

Knowing the spiritual master to be one’s ever well-wisher, dearest friend, and the manifestation of the supremely worshipable Lord Hari, one should serve him constantly, with sincerity, and with this attitude learn from him bhāgavata-dharma, or the various religious activities that will please Krishna, the giver of the soul.

Our most worshipable spiritual master, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, writes in his Vivṛti commentary on this verse:

Once one has taken shelter of the spiritual master, the jīva should serve him, taking the attitude that the guru is not a part of this illusory manifestatio...