1996 Lectures

Any good and qualified teacher or Guru doesn’t think like this [that all are my disciples, or servants]. Rūpa Gosvāmī never thought like this—never. They had Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī like a disciple, like his own brother, like a friend. Because in that world, no disciples, nothing, only here are there disciples. So I never think that anyone is my disciple, but I think…I joke with everyone, to Tungavidyā, to him, everyone, like my friends, bosom friends. I think that Prabhupāda also, Bhaktivedānta Swami, also thought like this. He helped all his disciples like his friends. Little, little girls and boys. He wanted to love them so passionately***. So I am so pleased to come here among such good devotees.
So you should try to come first in niṣṭhā. Do you know what is niṣṭhā? At first there is śraddhā, and when śraddhā is matured, it becomes niṣṭhā. Niṣṭhā is a good, high thing. Then the mind is fixed, there is no doubt in any siddhānta. No doubt. At that time, māyā will not attract. At that time, we will chant harināma, yet with no taste, but we see that there is no remedy without taking the chanting of Hari’s name. So even if there is no taste at the time of niṣṭhā, we know that there is nothing, anything, which will take us to Kṛṣṇa without His name.

So first we should try to know what our sadhya is. What do we want? If you want fruit then if you go to the car shop you won’t be able to get an orange. If you want cloth but you go to the fruit market you won’t find any garments there. So we should decide what our sadhya is. What do we want? We want Krishna. What Krishna? Dvarakadish Krishna? What do you want? Mathuradesh Krishna? Or Ramacandra? Or Krishna in Vaikuntha? We don’t know anything so we should do sadhu-sanga and realize what we want and then we will decide what our sadhana is.

The first aparadha is satang-nindha. The first offense to the holy name is to criticize the sadhus who are engaged in chanting harinama and in doing bhajan. These Vaisnavas should not be criticized. A man doesn’t offend guru as easily. He will respect his guru who gave him harinama and diksa. Only a degraded person will criticize his guru; or else no one will offend their guru. They know the glories of Sri Guru. But a person thinks of a Vaisnava to be like him. Although the Vaisnava is on the same platform as one’s guru, or although he may be even more advanced than one’s guru; but still, people consider him to be an ordinary person and thus, they criticize him…