Srila Gurudeva: Try to take these things that I am saying in your heart. If you want krsna-prema, if you want to develop your Krsna consciousness, try to take what I am telling you into your heart. These black boxes will cheat you. You are using all these things, but try to use your heart. Krsna has given you a very beautiful, strong machine, this heart. So, if someone chants the holy name once, then we should offer respect to them in our mind. If somebody is initiated...what is the meaning of initiation? If he has some relation with Krsna now and his chanting is now beyond the stage of namabhasa, if he is chanting without offense, then you should offer your dandavat pranamas with your heart to that person.
Then those who have given up lust, greed, anger, and all these things, who are always chanting, and if simply by seeing them Krsna is coming automatically in your heart, then you should understand, “Oh, he is a maha-bhagavata.” Then with all of your senses you should try to serve him with your life and soul. Don’t differentiate and think, “He is not in the direct line of my Guru.” Only for a kanistha-adhikari has it been said that we should stay within the direct line of our Guru.
We should try to follow all these things and if you are not following then you are helping your enemy to kill you. You should try to follow all these things. If anybody is chanting the holy name, if he is worshiping Krsna, if he is helping me in my Krsna consciousness, then he is my friend and he should be honored. Do you know Krsna and Radha? Who is serving who? Krsna is serving Radha or is Radha serving Krsna? Both are serving each other equally. Radha, from the core of Her heart she is performing arati of the effulgence of the nails of Krsna feet with lakhs and lakhs lamps. What is Krsna doing? He is taking the lotus feet of Radhika on His head and taking that red light, that kunkuma, on His head. Thus He thinks, “Now, My life is successful.”
We should be like this. I myself serve anyone who is chanting and remembering. From the core of my heart I want to serve him. I have left Vrndavana and have come here. Why? Only to help those who want to serve Krsna. So they are worshipable. If they are chanting one name even, we should not be angry with them. We should accept all of these things, “I will not speak any cruel words to anyone. I will not beat anyone. If my hand is going to do that I will cut my hand off. This is my vow. If my tongue is going to abuse anyone, I should punish myself, not others.”
[Spoken by Srila Gurudeva on December 20th, 1998, Bali, published as part of the Bhakta Bandhav Anthology, Volume 24]