Srila Gurudeva: If you surrender, Guru will quickly help you. If you are not surrendered, he will not help. Everyone should do like this. All of you should surrender to any living Guru, whether he is a siksa-guru, diksa-guru, or bhajana-guru. They are all the same. Sometimes the diksa-guru cannot say certain things. There are so many reasons for this. If he is giving so many instructions on all these things, then he is the diksa-guru, siksa-guru and bhajana-guru, all of them. But if he has no time and he is always absorbed in bhajana, then after his departure, a bhajana-guru should be there. As much as we have surrendered to our diksa-guru, we should also surrender to our siksa-guru. Let him be in control and he will save you. So first, surrender. Whatever he is saying, you should try to obey and then you will be saved from this vaco vegam. This vaco vegam is the root of all evil. It comes from the uncontrolled tongue which has no backbone. When the tongue is uncontrolled it becomes the root of all evil. Don’t try to misuse this tongue. Try to control your tongue.
You should make a vow, “From today I will control my tongue.” Everybody who is going to make this vow should raise their hand. You should fully, fully, with your whole heart you should all make a vow, “I will control my tongue and speech. If I am not able, if I am not so strong, then I make a vow that I will surrender. I have surrendered. Knowingly I will not do like this.” If this tongue is controlled, then anger will not come. Vaco vegam, manasah, then krodha vegam. But the root of all troubles is the tongue. Anger comes from this. Why? Because we have so much lust. We have so many desires to taste this world. We don‘t want to serve Krsna and Gurudeva.
If we will try like this, “O Gurudeva, I have surrendered. Whatever you will tell me to do, I will surely follow.” I want you all to follow like this. Don‘t do anything else. Only try to serve Krsna as I am giving guidance then you will see very quickly, very soon you will develop. But if you are not doing so, then you cannot develop. You are your own enemy. Krodha vegam is the root of all problems. This is our enemy. Our real enemy which we don’t think is our real enemy. If you want to be saved, try to conquer this very bad enemy of anger. You should think, “I am myself the enemy of myself. My anger, lust, and all these things are my real enemy.” You should all make a vow like this, “I will never be angry.” Charity begins from home, so we should try to follow Rupa Gosvami if we want that wealth.
[Spoken by Srila Gurudeva on December 20th, 1998, Bali, published as part of the Bhakta Bandhav Anthology, Volume 24]