Unflinching Faith in Your Guru's Words

The secret to success in spiritual life is to have unflinching faith in the words of your spiritual master. His words must be absolutely trusted because he does not speak his own words. He simply delivers to his disciples the pure message coming from Krishna. How does he do this? He speaks without addition or subtraction the instructions that he has received from his spiritual master.

For example, my spiritual master is His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. He is a bona fide spiritual master because he presents without any addition or subtraction the words of his spiritual master who, along with all previous spiritual masters, has done the same. In this systematic way perfect knowledge of the Absolute Truth has descended undeviatingly from the original spiritual master, Lord Sri Krishna. So, to not trust your spiritual master's words is to not trust Krishna. In other words, it is to commit spiritual suicide.

Srila Prabhupada Transmits the Knowledge Received from His Spiritual Master to His Disciples

Srila Prabhupada Transmits the Knowledge Received from His Spiritual Master to His Disciples

Answers by Citing the Vedic Version

Question: Surrender First to Guru or Krishna?

My dear Srila Gurudeva,
Please accept my humble and respectful obeisances at your lotus feet.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

I was talking with a devotee and at a certain point I expressed the opinion that first one must surrender to Krishna and then to the Guru, because Krishna says that one should surrender to Him and as a part of that surrender one must surrender to Guru later. This is why I humbly think that first is the surrender to Krishna obeying His commandment. Nevertheless this devotee was saying that first one must surrender to guru because he is the representative of Krishna, which is the reason one should render him service. My question is which is the perfect method? To surrender first to Krishna or surrender to Guru?

From Mendoza, Argentina,
Your eternal servant,

Adriana

Answer: Surrender to Both Simultaneously

Krishna orders you to surrender to Sri Guru, and Sri Guru orders you to surrender to Lord Krishna. So whether you surrender to Sri Guru or to Lord Krishna, by surrendering to either of them you are surrendering to both to them. So there is no question of two different acts of surrender. There is only one act of surrender simultaneously to Guru and Krishna. Surrender to Krishna means surrender to Guru. And surrender to Guru means surrender to Krishna.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

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