Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupada
Only that person whom Lord Krishna sends us as spiritual master will manifest before us as our guru. By the Lord’s mercy we attain a spiritual master, and by the spiritual master’s mercy we attain Krishna. We are given a spiritual master according to our fortune. Different people have different mentalities, and the omniscient Lord sends each an appropriate spiritual master. There are those who desire the Lord’s nonduplicitous mercy and who completely depend on him for their success. These souls please the Lord with their simple sincerity. To bestow his mercy upon them, he appears before them personally. To those who want something else from the Lord, who are not actually aspiring for his complete mercy, the Lord sends through his illusory energy a spiritual master appropriate to their mentality. A sincere person never faces difficulty but quickly finds a bona fide guru. — From Amrta Vani, collected teachings of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. Compiled in Bengali by Sri Bhakti Bhagavat Mayukha Maharaja. Adapted and translated into English by Bhumipati Das and Isvara Das. Touchstone Media. Mumbai. 2004. Page 28.
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Morning Walk—December 7, 1973, Los Angeles:
Bali Mardana: If someone is actually sincere, can he be cheated or will he always get a bona fide guru?
Prabhupāda: No, if he is sincere he’ll get. Yes. Guru-kṛṣṇa-kṛpāya pāya bhakti-latā-bīja [Cc. Madhya 19.151]. Guru and Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa is within you. As soon as He sees that you are sincere, He’ll give you the right person.
Bali Mardana: So if you are not completely sincere, you might get a Guru Maharaji.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Bali Mardana: If you’re not completely sincere, you might get someone else.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Because you want to be cheated, you go to the cheater. That’s all. Ye yathā māṁ prapadyante tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy aham [Bg. 4.11]. Kṛṣṇa is intelligent, superintelligent. If you are a cheater, He’ll cheat you. He’ll cheat you. First-class cheat, Kṛṣṇa. But if you’re actually sincere, then He’ll give you the right thing. That is stated in the Bhag…, mattaḥ smṛtir jñānam apohanaṁ ca: [Bg. 15.15] \”Everything is coming from Me: smṛtiḥ, remembrance, and forgetfulness.\” If you are a cheater, Kṛṣṇa will give you such intelligence, you’ll forget Kṛṣṇa forever.
Dr. Wolfe: Śrīla Prabhupāda, so it is so, \”Birds of a feather flock together.\” The cheaters flock together.
Prabhupāda: Yes. \”Birds of the same feather flock together.\”
TLC 18–Unless one is under the shelter of a realized spiritual master, his understanding of the Supreme is simply foolishness.
Yaśomatīnandana: Sometimes they even say that \”You have your guru and I have my guru. It’s all the same thing.\”
Prabhupāda: Yes, and a thief has also a guru. Then that guru is also the same thing. (Hindi) Here guru means tasmād gurum prapadyeta jijñāsur śreya uttaman [SB 11.3.21]. (Hindi) Nāpnuvanti mahātmānam saṁsiddhiṁ paramaṁ gataḥ. SP conv Nov 14, 1975
TEXT 13–TRANSLATION–Sometimes, to mitigate distresses in this forest of the material world, the conditioned soul receives cheap blessings from atheists. He then loses all intelligence in their association. This is exactly like jumping in a shallow river. As a result one simply breaks his head. He is not able to mitigate his sufferings from the heat, and in both ways he suffers. The misguided conditioned soul also approaches so-called sādhus and svāmīs who preach against the principles of the Vedas. He does not receive benefit from them, either in the present or in the future.
PURPORT-Cheaters are always there to manufacture their own way of spiritual realization. To get some material benefit, the conditioned soul approaches these pseudo sannyāsīs and yogīs for cheap blessings, but he does not receive any benefit from them, either spiritual or material. In this age there are many cheaters who show some jugglery and magic. They even create gold to amaze their followers, and their followers accept them as God. This type of cheating is very prominent in Kali-yuga. Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura describes the real guru in this way.saṁsāra-dāvānala-līḍha-loka-
trāṇāya kāruṇya-ghanāghanatvamprāptasya kalyāṇa-guṇārṇavasya vande guroḥ śrī-caraṇāravindam
One should approach a guru who can extinguish the blazing fire of this material world, the struggle for existence.
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (11.3.21) gives similar advice:
tasmād guruṁ prapadyeta
jijñāsuḥ śreya uttamam
śābde pare ca niṣṇātaṁ
brahmaṇy upaśamāśrayam
“Any person who seriously desires to achieve real happiness must seek out a bona fide spiritual master and take shelter of him by initiation. The qualification of his spiritual master is that he must have realized the conclusion of the scriptures by deliberation and be able to convince others of these conclusions. Such great personalities, who have taken shelter of the Supreme Godhead, leaving aside all material considerations, are to be understood as bona fide spiritual masters.”…
\”Now, to take such guidance means the spiritual master should also be a very perfect man. Otherwise, how can he guide? .. Therefore one has to select a spiritual master whose order, carrying, you’ll not commit a mistake. You see? Now, suppose if you accept a wrong person as spiritual master, and if you, if he guides you wrongly, then your whole life is spoiled. So one has to accept a spiritual master whose guidance will make his life perfect. That is the relation between spiritual master and disciple. It is not a formality. It is a great responsibility both for the disciple and for the spiritual master.\” Lectures : Bhagavad-gita 2.7-11 — New York, March 2, 1966
Devotee: Srila Prabhupada, why has it taken so long for a pure devotee to come to the West? Has the West been so sinful that no pure devotee has come before Your Divine Grace?
Prabhupada: Don’t be sorry. At that time, you were so sinful that you could not receive a pure devotee.
Devotee: Yes. Once in a lecture a lady asked you why hadn’t you come sooner, and you just said, \”Well, you weren’t ready for me.\”
Prabhupada: Yes, \”Because you were not ready.\” Yes, I told. Yes. Now the Western boys, the descendant of the Western people, they are fortunate; therefore they receive Kṛṣṇa. Kona bhāgyavān jīva (CC Madhya 19.151). It is Kṛṣṇa’s desire that \”These people are suffering so much; let some devotees come here.\” So you are all devotees. You have come to join together.
(Srila Prabhupada Morning Walk, Los Angeles, December 7, 1973)
\”You have asked ‘How serious would it be for me if I should miss the golden opportunity to become your initiated disciple?’ You should know that the value of accepting a bonafide spiritual master is more than we can calculate. It is not a mere formality. Of course everyone is encouraged to chant Hare Krishna, but until one gives up sinful activities and becomes determined to serve Krishna through His representative then the firm fixing up of devotional service will not take hold, and there is every chance that one will fall prey to all sorts of material desires and have to come back again in the next life—and one cannot guarantee that he will be born in the form of life he may desire.\”
(Srila Prabhupada Letter to Ravendra Gupta, February 12, 1974)
SSR 2
Reporter: Don’t you feel that people are suspicious because of their experience with fake gurus? If you went to a quack dentist and he broke your tooth, you might be suspicious about going to another dentist.
Śrīla Prabhupāda: Yes. Naturally, if you are cheated, you become suspicious. But this does not mean that if you are cheated once, you will always be cheated. You should find someone genuine. But to come to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, you must be either very fortunate or well aware of this science.
Reporter: I wondered how many people you think might have been taken in by fake gurus.
Śrīla Prabhupāda: Practically everyone. [Laughter.] There is no question of counting. Everyone.
Reporter: This would mean thousands of people, wouldn’t it?
Śrīla Prabhupāda: Millions. Millions have been cheated, because they want to be cheated. God is omniscient. He can understand your desires. He is within your heart, and if you want to be cheated, God sends you a cheater.
June 30 1974 letter
As far as my blessing is concerned it does not require my physical presence. If you are chanting Hare Krishna there and following my instructions, reading the books, taking only Krsna prasadam etc., then there is no question of your not receiving the blessings of Lord Caitanya whose mission I am humbly trying to push on.