With the Touch of an Expert

Srila Prabhupada said that a devotee does not walk around with his head in the fog, that he instead works well with the touch of an expert. This will undoubtedly be surprising to those whose image of a transcendentalist is someone whose head is up in the clouds and is spaced out in material dealings. This image is not at all befitting a devotee because a devotee sees the entire world as being the energy of Krishna and because of his love for Krishna expertly tries to utilize it as much as possible in Krishna's service.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

Answers According to the Vedic Version:

Question: Why Do I Need a Guru to Realize God?

I was learning about the Conference of the Birds, a story in the Sikh religion. They were searching for their God, only to realize in the end that what they are searching for they already had and was nothing new. Is this what "self realization" is like with Vaisnavism?

You mentioned in "Thought for the Day" that one needs a spiritual master who is already self realized, in order to attain self realization. But didn't the Buddha and many others find this on their own? Isn't following the Gita and chanting Hare Krishna enough to find the true self?

Why do I need another human being to reach the Supersoul that is already in me? It just really feels like I'm being bamboozled into submitting to someone other than God. I don't trust humans, and I don't feel that any human who feels he should be submitted to is being totally honest with me. It's too easy to get sucked in to someone's game when you are searching so desperately for the Absolute Truth and are willing to give your material life for it. But then I'm being told I must submit to a human being to find my Spirit.

Kathleen

Answer: You Only Need to Follow God's Instructions

There is no such thing as different types of self-realization because self-realization is one, to perfectly realize one's individual self in relationship with the Supreme Self. And it is not that we are already self-realized. At the present moment we are misidentified with gross matter and are thus caught up in the miserable repetition of birth and death. The self-realized soul becomes re-situated in his original spiritual identity in which he was situated before he fell into the cycle of birth and death. There is no question that someone who is still caught in this cycle is self-realized.

Just as sometimes someone gets an honorary degree without ever having attended a university, sometimes someone may achieve spiritual perfection without taking shelter of a bona fide spiritual master. So does this mean that if I want a PHD degree I should just sit on my front porch in my rocking chair and wait for the postman to deliver my PHD degree to me? Or if I want a PHD degree, should I enroll in the university and work under the guidance of the expert professor?

If you would like to take your chances of becoming self-realized without taking shelter of a bona fide spiritual master, you are welcome to try. But the chances are very slim, just as the odds of getting an honorary PHD degree from a bona fide university are very slim.

Certainly everyone is welcome to directly approach God to become his surrendered servant. But when we surrender to God we have to surrender to Him 100% on His terms. If we come to Him with our own terms of surrender, we are asking Him to surrender to us. This mentality of our expecting God to carry out our orders is the reason we fell into illusion in the first place. So if we are serious about self-realization, we must be serious to fully surrender ourselves unto God on His terms.

So what will we do if God orders us to approach Him via the bona fide spiritual master? Will we refuse to follow His instruction?

He does order us so, as confirmed in all the revealed scriptures. So what will we do now? Will we tell Him that He is wrong?

Sankarshan Das Adhikari