Spiritually Rewarding

It's 6:15am on Sunday 21 September. We have just returned late last night from Sliven, Bulgaria where I gave three lectures in conjunction with the wonderful Ratha Yatra festival that was celebrated there yesterday. We did not get to take rest until midnight, but still we were up this morning by 4am to attend mangala arati and do the daily puja for Sri Sri Radha Damodar. Later this morning we head out for Macedonia where I will be delivering the Sunday Feast lecture at the ISKCON center in Skopje. Traveling and preaching is not always easy. But it is very spiritually rewarding to be sacrificing all comforts for the sake of pushing forward the sankirtana movement of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

Answers According to the Vedic Version:

Question: Accepting a Guru For Sake of Having a Guru

What is the difference between the siksha guru and the diksha guru? Can only serious persons choosing the path of nirvana take diksha? Or can a worldly person who wants to have guru just for the sake of guru be entitled for that? Does the guru impart the same kind of knowledge to both categories? Or does he give the most confidential knowledge only to selected disciples? Please clear my doubts regarding that.

Dandvat to u

Rajan Das

Answer: Do Not Take Guru Like a Dog

There is little difference between the siksha and diksha guru. Both of them are full manifestations of the mercy of Lord Sri Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Both of them purely impart the knowledge and mercy coming down from Krishna through the chain of disciplic succession. The one difference is that diksha guru formally initiates the disciple into spiritual life and becomes his eternal spiritual authority.

The spiritual master is only for those who are serious about escaping the cycle of repeated birth and death. Accepting a guru in name only has no value. There is no sense in accepting a guru as a matter of fashion just as someone may keep a dog. Guru means where you fully surrender yourself without argument. Otherwise do not accept a guru.

The spiritual master gives the same knowledge to all, but it is only realized to the extent that the disciple fully surrenders himself at the lotus feet of guru and Krishna. Without surrender we will never realize the full import of the Vedic wisdom as explained to all by the spiritual master.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

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