The Asrama of Guru

Srila Gurudeva: I want to tell you that you should all consider that for the next seven days we are in the Guru’s asrama. This is now, for the next seven days, this is Guru grha, the asrama of Guru. You should daily wake up very early morning, punctually. You can take bath, or you can do acamana, and then chant the holy name or very patiently you can chant your diksa mantras, very patiently. Don’t chant your diksa mantras in a hurry. You should chant them punctually and with so much honor. When you are chanting guru-mantra, you should know who is the istadeva of that mantra. Who is the presiding deity of that mantra?

Like klim krsnaya, in this mantra, who is the presiding deity? What is the relation between this deity and me? We should also be very prapatti, surrendered. Surrender is of three kinds. Prapatti, saranagati and atma-nivedana. So first surrender is like prapatti, that, “O Krsna, You are the Supreme Personality of Godhead. You are the deity of this mantra. You are so powerful. I know that You can support me and nourish me, so I am taking Your shelter.” At first you will only be able to say this by words. You cannot say this from your atma, your real soul. But by intellectually knowing this fact, you can say something like this from your tongue or from your material heart. After this, you will realize something and then you will be saranagata.

There are six kinds of saranagati. What are they? Anything, whatever we do, we should do for Krsna. We should only endeavor for those things which are helpful and favorable for bhakti. Then those things which are not favorable, we should try to give up all those things. We will know that Krsna will certainly maintain us and protect us. We will think, “I am giving myself totally at the lotus feet of first to Gurudeva and then to Krsna.” This is saranagati. If anyone is saranagata, he will think, “I have no need to worry for my maintenance or any difficulties that come because Krsna knows everything and He will manage everything.”

Then realizing this, atma-nivedanam will come after engaging in sravanam, kirtanam, visnu-smaranam, pada-sevanam, arcanam, vandanam, dasyam, sakhyam, then atma-nivedanam. So remembering all these things, we should remember klim krsnaya and all other mantras. “Om bhur bhuvah,” brahma-gayatri. Guru-mantra, guru-gayatri, gaura-mantra, gaura-gayatri, gopala-mantra, and then kama-gayatri, panca-tattva and then Hare Krsna. You should chant very steadily, not in a hurry. Don’t think, “Oh, I have to go there. (Srila Gurudeva chants very fast) Hare Krsna Hare Krsna.” Not like this. Chant in the proper way. These processes are siddha-pranali. You should do this daily.

[Spoken by Srila Gurudeva on April 28th, 1998, France, published as part of the Bhakta Bandhav Anthology, Volume 27]

[mailerlite_form form_id=1]