Srila Gurudeva: Those who have not received harinama, are not hearing from a bona fide Guru, are not associating with high class Vaisnavas, if they are born in a very good family like a Gosvami family and they have accepted any family Guru and they are chanting and remembering, having so many anarthas, but yet they have very strong faith in the deities and they worship Them, then they are kanistha-adhikaris. They have faith in sri-vigraha and they worship Them, but they don’t know how to behave with Vaisnavas.
They don’t have so much honor for Vaisnavas. They cannot distinguish what kind of Vaisnava anyone is, whether he is kanistha or uttama or madhyama. This kind of devotee is a kanistha-adhikari. Their bhakti is chaya-bhakti-abhasa, a semblance of bhakti. It is not pure bhakti, it is a semblance of bhakti.
There are two kinds of abhasa, semblance. One is pratibimba and the other is chaya. Pratibimba means reflection. The sun is reflected anywhere in water and the sun is seen in the water, but really the sun is separate, being very far away from that water. But still the sun is seen there. But when a current will come in the water then the sun will wave like this and disappear. So actually the sun is not there, but it is seen there. This is called pratibimba, reflection.
Then the other kind of semblance is chaya-bhakti-abhasa. Chaya means shadow, a shadow of bhakti. It is somewhat better than a reflection. The kanistha-adhikari has some shadow of bhakti, but not pure bhakti, so they cannot help anyone in bhakti. If they will associate with a madhyama-adhikari bhakta, then he can be promoted. Otherwise not.
Here, the behavior of a madhyama-adhikari is described, how he should behave with other devotees, those who are non-devotees, and those who are madhyama-adhikari, kanistha-adhikari. It describes how his behavior should be with others. You should know all of these things because you are very soon coming to the stage of madhyama-adhikara from kanistha-adhikari.
A madhyama-adhikari will do bhakti, pure bhakti, and have prema for Krsna. He will know who Krsna is, who is Rama, Nrsimha and Kalki. He will know about all the manifestations of Krsna and he will know, “Who am I?” He has heard about who he really is, but in this beginning stage, he has not yet realized who he is. But he has heard from Vaisnavas that, “I am a part and parcel, the eternal servant of Krsna, and Krsna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead.”
So, taking initiation and having some relation with Krsna and chanting and chanting, he has removed so many his anarthas. He has given up all unwanted desires and has also crossed over offenses and everything, nama-aparadha and everything. But yet, something, some scent is still there. He has nistha, he has come up to the stage of nistha or he may even be at the stage of ruci. Bhaktivinoda Thakura is saying that here, prema means suddha, pure bhakti. A madhyama-adhikari has attained this in his heart.
[Spoken by Srila Gurudeva on April 29th, 1998, France, published as part of the Bhakta Bandhav Anthology, Volume 27]
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