Śrī Śrī Prema-Bhakti-Candrikā, verse 5

cakṣu dāna dilo yei, janme janme prabhu sei,
divya jñāna hṛde prokāśito
prema bhakti yāhā hoite, avidyā vināśa yāte
vede gāy yāhāra carito (5)

“He who opened my eyes is my Lord, birth after birth. He revealed divine knowledge within my heart. From him ecstatic loving devotion emanates, he destroys all ignorance and his glories are sung by the Vedas.”

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartīpāda’s ṭīkā — cakṣu dāna ityādi saṁsārārṇava tāraṇa pūrvakaṁ carma cakṣur mocayitvā para tattvāvalokana yogya divya cakṣur yena dattam. divya jñāna ityādi — kṛṣṇa dīkṣādi śikṣaṇa rūpaṁ divya jñānaṁ hṛdi prakāśitaṁ yeneti śeṣaḥ. vede gāya ityādi— veda kartṛka tac caritra gānam. yathā— sarva vedānta sāra śrī bhāgavata—’ācāryaṁ māṁ vijānīyād iti’. ācāryavān puruṣo vede’tyādi ‘ācārya devo bhaved ityādyāś ca śrutau ca

Divine knowledge

Sudhā-kaṇikā vyākhyā by Śrīmat Ananta Dāsa Bābājī —

Although the living entity, who is Kṛṣṇa’s eternal servant, consists of pure spirit he has forgotten his constitutional position and has been in the grip of the Lord’s external, illusory energy since beginningless time. Thus he considers his gross material body to be himself ‘I’ and his relationships, like wife and children to be his ‘mine’. Thus, according to his cravings and his conditionings, he wears different bodies and wanders around in the material world, suffering the intolerable pangs of birth, death, old age and disease. Worshiping Śrī Kṛṣṇa under the shelter of the lotus feet of Śrī Guru is the only means to become free from this misery. kṛṣṇa nitya dāsa jīva tāhā bhūli gelo; sei doṣe māyā tara golāy bāndhilo. tāte kṛṣṇa bhaje kore gurura sevana; māyā jāla chute pāy kṛṣṇera caraṇa (C.C. Madhya 22,24) –  “The living entity has forgotten that he is Kṛṣṇa’s eternal servant and due to this fault māyā has bound him around the neck. If he worships Kṛṣṇa and serves the Guru the network of illusion will snap and he will attain Kṛṣṇa’s lotus feet.”

By giving initiation and instructions Śrī Gurudeva will save the student from the ocean of birth and death, opening his deluded physical eyes, that are unable to perceive Godhead, and making them qualified to perceive spiritual things, thus blessing the disciple with the ambrosial relish of bhajana. Here, along with the eyes, it is indicated that the other senses of the practitioner also become spiritualised and are made suitable for worshipping the Lord. The purport of this is that mundane senses and minds are unfit to worship Śrī Kṛṣṇa. When Śrī Gurudeva gives initiation-mantra, being subdued by feelings of causeless compassion, the disciple exclaims: trāyasva bho jagannātha guro saṁsāra vahninā; dagdhaṁ māṁ kāla daṣṭaṁ ca tvām ahaṁ śaraṇaṁ gataḥ —

“O Śrī Guru! O embodiment of the Lord’s deep compassion! Save me, who am scorched by the fire of material existence and grabbed by the force of time! O Lord! I am surrendered unto You!”

When the disciple exclaims this and surrenders his body, mind and life-airs to Śrī Gurudeva, then the Guru, with his touch of the power of the ambrosial principle of Godhead, anointed with his own compassion (which acts like a touchstone that turns iron into gold), along with the power of his own devotion, filled with his worship of the Lord, infuses devotion into the body, mind and life-airs of the disciple, thus making the disciple’s body and senses qualified for the transcendental devotional service of the Lord’s lotus feet. The body, mind and senses of the sādhaka have thus become spiritualised and merged into worship of the Lord, and only by Guru’s grace it can be accomplished that this stays in every limb of the body.

In this way Guru’s grace will make the body and mind of the disciple suitable for the worship of the lotus feet, offers them to the Lord’s lotus feet and establishes a specific relationship of the living entity with the Lord. Hence Śrīla Ṭhākura Mahāśaya says: cakṣu dāna dilo yei, janme janme prabhu sei, divya jñāna hṛde prokāśito – “He opened my physical eyes and enabled me to perceive the principle of Godhead by opening them and turning them into devotional eyes anointed with the ointment of love. When he is pleased and places the power of his grace in the heart, divine knowledge is revealed there through his instructions and initiation into kṛṣṇa mantra. This Śrī Guru, the bestower of love for Kṛṣṇa and knowledge about Him, is my lord and master, birth after birth, and I am his servant birth after birth.”
This statement shows the relationship between the Guru and the disciple and the eternity of that relationship also. In other words, a living entity wanders through different species of life, according to his previous activities and has relationships with different fathers, mothers, friends and relatives each time, but the relationship between the Guru and the disciple is not like that. Birth after birth the disciple stays with the same Śrī Guru according to the time, making him drink the sweet nectar of bhajana, blessing him with prema, taking him to the kingdom of līlā and ultimately blessing him by giving him the service of his beloved deity. Aho Guru-kṛpā! Nothing can equal this!

After this, Śrīla Ṭhākura Mahāśaya says: prema bhakti yāhā hoite, avidyā vināśa jāte, vede gāy jāhāra carito –
We have said that when the compassion of the Lord, who is an ocean of mercy, becomes very dense, it assumes a tangible form and appears as the Guru to benefit the conditioned souls. Through that Śrī Gurudeva, who is the incarnation of the Lord’s grace, we can come to know the Lord’s compassion. Śrī Gurudeva’s heart is the jewelled throne where Queen Bhakti, who is the essence of the Lord’s pleasure- and existence-potencies, sits. Sitting there she distributes her grace to the people of the world. Mounting Śrī Guru’s grace, she pervades the heart of the student and blesses him with the gift of prema. When knowledge about the relationship with God is attained by Śrī Guru’s grace, all possessiveness towards bodily things and matters that are not related to Kṛṣṇa is lost and, through the Śrī Guru-Praṇālī (paramparā), a deep possessiveness towards Śrī Kṛṣṇa descends to the heart of the practitioner, like the stream of the heavenly Gaṅgā, causing loving devotion to awaken within it. This confidential principle can be learned from Śrīmad Bhāgavata (10.2.31) —

svayaṁ samuttīrya sudustaraṁ dyuman bhavārṇavaṁ bhīmamadabhra sauhṛdāḥ
bhavat padāmbhoruha nāvam atra te nidhāya yātāḥ sad anugraho bhavān

bhavat padāmbhoruha-rūpāṁ nāvam atraiva nidhāya bhakti mārga sampradāyaṁ pravartetyarthaḥ pāraṁ yātāḥ (Śrīdhara Svāmī’s ṭīkā)

Brahmā and other gods prayed to Śrī Kṛṣṇa while He was in Devakī-devī’s womb:
“O self-luminous One! Your grace towards the devotees is limitless! On the strength of Your grace the devotees take shelter of the boat of Your lotus feet and cross over the ocean of material existence, which is otherwise hard to cross. These devotees in their turn are so kind towards the conditioned souls that they keep this boat of Your lotus feet (in the form of the devotional tradition, read: the Śrī Guru paramparā-succession) in this material world for their redemption.”

From this it is clearly understood that there is no other means to cross over the ocean of material existence and to attain loving devotion then to take shelter of Śrī Guru’s lotus feet. The main result of taking shelter of Śrī Guru’s lotus feet is the attainment of prema and the service of the lotus feet of the Lord, while a concomitant factor is the destruction of ignorance, which lies root at material existence. Hence Śrīla Ṭhākura Mahāśaya says: avidyā vināśa yāte – “Through the Lord’s external energy māyā, ignorance, the living entities have forgotten their own constitutional position, having been averse to the Lord since beginningless time.

This ignorance is of five kinds— tama, moha, mahā moha, tāmisra and andha tāmisra. tamaḥ means ignorance in the sense that in deep darkness you cannot even see your own hand when you stretch it out, what to speak of anything else? Similarly if the conditioned soul cannot even understand his own constitutional position, then how can he ever see Śrī Kṛṣṇa as long as this ignorance or tamaḥ remains? moha means having no idea what to do and what not to do, mahā moha means desire for enjoyment, tāmisra means anger arising from thwarted enjoyment, and andha tāmisra means absorption in protecting one’s enjoyment when it is under threat of extinction. These kinds of ignorance are the work of māyā. By the grace of Śrī Guru this ignorance is destroyed as a concomitant consequence.

Another meaning of avidyā is the different vices that form obstacles the practitioner faces in bhajana. There are four kinds of vice — 1) duṣkṛtottha, or vices caused by past evil deeds, 2) sukṛtottha, vices caused by past good deeds, 3) aparādhottha, vices caused by past offensive deeds, and 4) bhaktyuttha, vices caused in the course of one’s devotional service. Vices caused by past evil deeds are counted amongst kleśas.

There are five kinds of kleśa — avidyā, asmitā, rāga, dveṣa and abhiniveśa. Here avidyā means considering temporary things to be eternal, foul things to be pure, distress to be happiness and the inert to be sentient. asmitā means false ego, rāga means seeking pleasure, yearning for it or being attached to it, dveṣa means the desire to remove distress or its cause and abhiniveśa means fear of death. Some also count vices caused by good past acts in the form of absorption in enjoyment amongst the kleśas. By the grace of Śrī Guru all these vices are easily destroyed. Vices caused by offences are tenfold in the form of the ten offences to the chanting of the holy name, and vices caused in the course of devotion are desires for profit, adoration and distinction.
By Śrī Guru’s grace the practitioner becomes free from them also and becomes blessed with attaining the treasure of spotless worship.

vede gāy jāhāra carito — The Vedas and associated scriptures constantly glorify Śrī Guru. The Vedas constantly sing the glories of he by whose grace loving devotion is attained and ignorance is uprooted. ācāryavān puruṣo veda (Chāndogya Upaniṣad) “Transcendental principles are understood by he who has taken shelter of Śrī Guru’s lotus feet and who is surrendered to his service.” yasya deve parābhaktir yathā deve tathā gurau; tasyaite kathitā hyarthāḥ prakāśante mahātmanaḥ (Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 6.23) “To those great souls who recite the Vedas with equal devotion to Guru and God, the purport of all this (Vedic) knowledge will be revealed”. tad vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum evābhigacchet samit pāṇiḥ śrotriyaṁ brahma niṣṭham (Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 1.12) (“For the sake of acquiring knowledge, approach a Guru who is learned in the scriptures and fixed in spiritual consciousness, with firewood in the hand”) In Śrīmad Bhāgavata Śrī Kṛṣṇa has said: ācāryaṁ māṁ vijāniyāt “You should know Śrī Guru to be Me in truth.”

In the Chāndogya Upaniṣad of the Sāma Veda the following narration of the glories of Śrī Guru can be found: Being sent by Jāvālā, Satyakāma Jābāl came to Maharṣi Gautama to learn the science of brahman from him. The sage accepted him and engaged him in cow-protection. Being satisfied with Satyakāma’s loyalty and service to his Guru, ṣabha, Agni, Haṁsa and others bestowed knowledge of brahman upon him. Although Satyakāma had received knowledge from them he attained knowledge again by pleasing Gautama. Upakauśala came to Satyakāma to attain knowledge of brahman from him and Satyakāma engaged him in services like fetching fire and so. Being satisfied with Upakauśala’s loyal service to his Guru, Agni bestowed knowledge of brahman upon him. Although he had already attained knowledge from Agni, Upakauśala still pleased Satyakāma and attained knowledge of brahman from him, and so forth. Such loyal service to the Guru is also often narrated in the Vedic appendix Mahābhārata, in the stories of Upamanyu, Uttaṅka, Uddālaka and others. vede gāy jāhāra carito. (5)