Delivering All Distressed Souls from Their Misery

The mission of the great liberated spaceman, Srila Narada Muni, is to deliver all the distressed souls of this universe from their misery. He plays on his transcendental instrument, a veena which was given to him by Lord Krishna, to glorify the transcendental activities of Lord Krishna and to give relief to all of the miserable living entities who are rotting in the cycle of birth and death in the universe. In order to enlighten the miserable inhabitants he wanders everywhere. His mission is to deliver all the conditioned souls of this universe back to their original home in the spiritual sky. All genuine devotees of Lord Krishna follow in Narada Muni's footsteps by adopting the same mission.

The Liberated Spaceman, Srila Narada Muni
Deliverer of the Distressed Souls of this Universe

Answers by Citing the Vedic Version

Question: Should We Read the Previous Acharyas' Books?

Srila Gurudeva,

Please accept my humble obeisances.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

We say we follow only what Prabhupada instructed us. But I hear from so many devotees that we should also do what Bhaktivinode Thakur or Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati said. Some say that we also need to follow what other previous spiritual masters in our disciplic line (parampara) taught. And some devotees go deep, deep into philosophies from the Vedas and push us to read deeply the philosophies of previous spiritual masters. Disciplic succession or parampara means that each guru gives the same knowledge to his disciples as he gotten from his guru. This is what Srila Prabhupada has taught us. So where do we draw the line in our studies? How deeply do we need to go into the writings of the previous acharyas, the previous spiritual masters?

Your eternal servant,

Girish

Answer: Don't Jump Over Srila Prabhupada

Everything we need to become perfect in spiritual understand and perfect in pure love of Krishna is thoroughly and exhaustively taught to us by our most beloved Founder-Acharya, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaja Prabhupada, in his profoundly enlightening books, which are unique in the history of the universe. Sadly, nowadays we see a tendency in ISKCON for devotees to jump over Srila Prabhupada to the writings of the previous acharyas even before they have completely read or mastered their understanding of Srila Prabhupada's books. This is a great offense against Srila Prabhupada and will wreak havoc in the spiritual lives of those who choose to thus minimize or neglect the writings of Srila Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada instructed us not to jump over his head going to the writings of the previous acharyas. He said, "Do not try to jump over me to my Guru Maharaja. Whatever was given by my Guru Maharaja is given by me in my books, but in just the suitable way for your understanding. I am your siksha and diksha guru." This jumping over tendency is most dangerous because it can bring about the complete destruction of our movement. Therefore our devotees should devote their entire lives to reading again and again all the books of Srila Prabhupada. By so doing they will become perfect in understanding in full the Vedic wisdom. This is confirmed as follows in the Svetasvatara Upanisad 6.23:

yasya deve parā bhaktir
yathā deve tathā gurau
tasyaite kathitā hy arthāḥ
prakāśante mahātmanaḥ

"Only unto one who has unflinching devotion to the Lord and to the spiritual master does transcendental knowledge become automatically revealed."

This verse does not say that one has to jump over the head of one's guru to the previous acharyas to gain transcendental knowledge. Srila Prabhupada's books are so expertly written that they make the Vedic teachings more accessible and easily understandable than they have ever been in the history of the universe.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari