The necessity to take shelter of a true sat guru

One who wants to worship the Supreme Lord must first take shelter of the lotus feet of Śrī Guru. Bhajana-sādhana is far removed from one who does not take shelter of the lotus feet of Śrī Guru, because this is the gate through which one enters to the path of bhakti. This does not only count for the path of bhakti, there is no practice in the world that does not require the shelter of a guru’s (teacher’s) feet! If it is necessary to accept a learned and experienced teacher to learn something in this mundane world, then it is that one needs to take shelter of the feet of a guru to learn bhakti, which is the highest form of wisdom in the spiritual world. Another special feature of devotional knowledge is that the merciful Śrī Bhagavān has personally appeared within this world in the form of the Guru to teach bhakti to the people of the world.

We have briefly discussed the guru-principle above. When the gravity (gurutva) of the guru-principle is understood, then there will be no more doubts about the importance of taking shelter of the lotus feet of Śrī Guru. What is the intrinsic status of Śrī Guru, what is the nature of guru and what is the auspicious result of taking shelter of Śrī Guru’s feet? An ignorant person has different doubts about these questions on taking shelter of Śrī Guru’s feet. Knowledge on all these guru-principles is acquired in the association of the sādhus. Without the company of the devotees of the Supreme Lord, the principle of guru cannot be understood. Hence the scriptures and the great saints first of all advise the people who wish to do sādhana-bhajana, and who desire the highest welfare, to associate with the saints. In Śrīmad Bhāgavata, Lord Śrī Kapiladeva has told His own mother Devahūti:

satāṁ prasaṅgān mama vīrya saṁvido
bhavanti hṛt karṇa rasāyanāḥ kathāḥ
taj joṣaṇād āśvapavarga vartmani
śraddhā ratir bhaktir anukramiṣyati
(Bhāgavata, 3.25.25)

“When one attains the excellent company of the saints, topics that indicate My glories become like nectar for the heart and the ears. Anyone who lovingly relishes these topics, which are the swift pathway to the cessation of ignorance, will gradually develop faith, attachment and devotion for Me.”

The purport of this is that by hearing topics on the Supreme Lord from the great saints, one first attains faith, then one attains the shelter of a genuine guru and engages in bhajana, because of which rati and prema gradually develop. The living beings have been wandering through different species of life since beginningless time and by the Lord’s grace they have attained this human body, which is the gateway to liberation from the repetition of birth and death. The most fortunate amongst these human beings will attain the association of the saints. While hearing topics of Śrī Kṛṣṇa from the mouths of the greatly realized devotees of the Lord, the heart, which is polluted by attachment to sense objects, will be somewhat purified, and one will realize that the body and everything related to it is temporary, and the ocean of temporary material existence seems impossible to cross. Then, the heart will become eager to cross the impassable and miserable ocean of material existence, which is filled with the crocodiles and sharks of lust and anger, to attain the eternally blissful lotus feet of the Lord and to find a suitable captain for the sturdy ship of the human body – Śrī Guru.

In Śrīmad Bhāgavata, Śrī Kṛṣṇa has told Uddhava: 

nṛ deham ādyaṁ sulabhaṁ sudurlabhaṁ
plavaṁ sukalpaṁ guru karṇa-dhāram
mayānukūlena nabhasvateritaṁ pumān
bhavābdhiṁ na taret sa ātma-hā
(Śrīmad Bhāgavata, 11.20.17)

“O Uddhava! This human body is the ādya, the root cause of all welfare, and sukalpa, expert in accomplishing its goal. The living entity attains this rarely attained human body, which is like an excellent boat with Śrī Gurudeva as its captain. On top of everything, I am providing favorable winds to steer it in the right direction. A person who does not endeavor to cross the ocean of material existence despite receiving this body is destroying himself.”

We have already discussed that in the company of the saints one comes to realize that one must take shelter of the feet of a guru. Thus, we must understand that association with the bhaktas has not taken place if one has not realized the necessity of taking shelter of the feet of a guru. Wherever the association of the devotees is attained or is going on and there is no realization about the obligation to take shelter of the lotus feet of Śrī Guru, or such shelter has not yet been taken, we must understand that the real association of saints has not taken place yet, or that due to some mischief the results of association with the saints are not yet tangible. If the shelter of Śrī Guru’s feet has not been attained, the fruit to be attained from the association of devotees is the taking shelter of the feet of Śrī Guru. It is so because bhajana begins only after one receives dīkṣa (initiation) and śīkṣā (instructions) from a genuine guru.

When a person wishes to be blessed with the fruits of sādhana bhajana and he desires to take shelter of the lotus feet of Śrī Guru, it is absolutely necessary that he takes shelter of the feet of a genuine guru.

When the guru-potency awakens within a saint, he becomes known as a sad-guru. This guru-potency awakens within a saint in the following way: Those who have removed the dirt from their hearts through their practice of sādhana-bhajana, in whose hearts bhakti has awakened and who have become ornamented by saintly qualities such as compassion and kindness, their hearts melt when they see the misery the conditioned souls experience in the material world of māyā.

By instructing the conditioned souls in the practice of bhajana, they destroy their miserable condition and they are eager to bless them by giving them the relish of bhakti-rasa. By the Lord’s wish, the guru-potency emanates from Him and appears within the hearts of such bhakti-siddha-mahāpuruṣas (His pure devotees).

A person who covets devotion to the Supreme Lord is blessed by taking shelter of such a qualified and genuine guru. The characteristics of such a genuine guru have been described in Śrīmad Bhāgavata (11.3.21):

tasmād guruṁ prapadyeta jijñāsuḥ śreyaḥ uttamam
śābde pare ca niṣṇātaṁ brahmaṇyupaśamāśrayam

“Therefore, a person who inquires about the highest welfare should take shelter of the lotus feet of a genuine guru, who is śabdabrahma and parabrahma-niṣṇāta, and upaśamāśraya, or free from lust and greed.”

Śrīdhara Svāmī writes in his commentary on this verse:

śābde brahmaṇi vedākhye nyāyato niṣṇātaṁ tattvajñam. anyathā saṁśaya nirāsakatvāyogāt. pare ca brahmaṇi aparokṣānubhavena niṣṇātam. anyathā bodha sañcārāyogāt. para brahma niṣṇātatva dyotakam āha upaśamāśrayam iti –

“That the genuine guru is śabdabrahma-  niṣṇāta means that he is a knower of the Vedic literature and a knower of the truth. If he is not, then he cannot remove the doubts of the disciples who take shelter of him. Then again, he is parabrahma-niṣṇāta, which means that He is a devotee, or that He is endowed with transcendental realisations about Śrī Kṛṣṇa. If he is not, then he cannot infuse realisations on bhajana within the heart of his disciple.”

How do we recognize a true sat guru?

One may ask here: “We may be able to see that the guru is śabdabrahma-niṣṇāta by seeing and hearing his scriptural knowledge, but how will we know if he is parabrahma-niṣṇāta, or filled with transcendental realizations about Śrī Kṛṣṇa?”

The answer to this is that he should be upaśamāśraya, or devoid of lust, anger and greed. The heart of anyone who is enlightened by bhakti cannot be covered by the darkness of lust and greed and so on.

Therefore, the definitions of a genuine guru given by the śāstras are as follows:

1) He is filled with realizations about the Personality of Godhead due to his firm faith and his firm adherence to the bhajana of the Lord. He has attained the grace of his own guru by being similarly devoted to his guru’s lotus feet.

2) He is very learned in the Vedas and in bhakti-scriptures that outline the meaning of the Vedas, such as Śrīmad Bhāgavata. Thus, he can destroy the doubts in his disciples.

3) Because he has transcendental realizations about Śrī Kṛṣṇa, he has attained His mercy-potency. Thus, he has become so powerful that he is able to bring the disciple onto the path of bhakti and infuse this power within him.

4) He is not overcome by vices like lust and greed.

A saint who is endowed with such attributes and who is filled with parental love for his disciples can attain the position of a   genuine guru. Such a genuine guru can destroy different obstacles the disciple may find in his bhajana, bless him with prema and bring him to the lotus feet of Śrī Kṛṣṇa. On the other hand, a person who desires to be known as a guru may have many virtues, like high birth and so on, but if he does not have the abovementioned characteristics, he will not be counted amongst the genuine gurus. Therefore, a faithful person who is eager to do Śrī Kṛṣṇa-bhajana should take shelter of the lotus feet of a mahāpuruṣa who is endowed with the right qualities, receive initiation into Śrī Kṛṣṇa-mantra from him and learn bhajana from him.

How to attain the mercy of such a guru?

Some people think that a genuine guru is very rare in this world and it is not easy to recognize and attain a genuine guru. Thinking like this, they do not endeavor to take dīkṣā-mantra and thus waste the precious moments of their rare human lives. In this connection it must be said that when the Lord descends as the genuine guru for the benefit of the world, He is never hard to attain or unattainable for the genuine seekers of bhajana and those who are eager to take shelter of the genuine guru. Those, who give up crookedness and associate with saints with a simple and innocent mind for the cessation of their material miseries, earnestly taking shelter of the feet of a genuine guru for the sake of worshipping the Lord, praying to the Lord with an eager heart while hoping to attain the genuine guru, will certainly be blessed with the shelter of a genuine guru – of this there is not even the slightest doubt. Merciful Śrī Hari will certainly provide good fortune and opportunities to such persons, who are so eager to do bhajana.

The special power of Guru-bhakti 

In Bhakti Sandarbha Śrīmat Jīva Gosvāmīpāda has written:

tatra yadyapi śaraṇāpattyaiva sarvaṁ siddhyati . . . tathāpi vaiśiṣṭhya lipsuḥ śaktaścet tataḥ bhagavacchastropadeṣṭṛṇāṁ vā śrī guru-caraṇānāṁ nityam eva viśeṣataḥ sevāṁ kuryāt –  

“Although the sādhaka achieves all perfection by surrendering to the Lord’s lotus feet, still if a person wants to attain special perfection, then he must always specially serve the guru who instructs him in the scriptures as well as the guru who initiated him into the Lord’s mantras.” 

Śrīla Gosvāmīpāda uses the word viśeṣataḥ (specially) in the phrase viśeṣataḥ sevāṁ kuryāt to hint at special service to the guru. Special service means also an ordinary service. After taking initiation, the sādhaka always engages in the worship of Śrī Hari by hearing, chanting, worshipping the deities and praising the Lord. This also includes the formal worship and praises, etc. of Śrī Guru. Therefore, wherever the chief items of bhajana are hearing and chanting the glories of the Lord, the worship and praise of Śrī Guru is incorporated as a secondary item. That is called ordinary service to the guru. By worshipping the guru as an aspect of one’s worship of the Supreme Lord, the sādhaka attains the fruit of prema. It is a rule in the kingdom of sādhana that worship of the Lord will be successful when it is endowed with sincere guru-bhakti.

Then again, if a person is exclusively surrendered to guru-bhakti and fixed in guru-sevā, and keeps the worship and service of Śrī Guru as the main item, while practising hearing and chanting about the Lord as a auxiliary item of his bhajana, it is called special guru-sevā. Then the service of the guru is the priority, or the aṅgī, and the hearing and chanting of the Supreme Lord is secondary, or the aṅga. This kind of sādhaka, who is especially fixed in his service to the guru, is called vaiśiṣṭya lipsu by Śrīmat Jīva Gosvāmīpāda. The Lord showers such a sādhaka, who is exclusively fixed in the service of his guru, with even more mercy (than a person who worships Him personally). In Śrī Padma Purāṇa, in the Śrī Devahūti-stava, it is seen:

bhaktir yathā harau me’sti tad variṣṭhā gurau yadi
mamāsti tena satyena sandarśayatu me hariḥ

“If I have more devotion for the guru than for Śrī Hari Himself, then because of this truth He will surely reveal Himself to me.” 

When Śrī Guru is pleased, Śrī Hari is naturally pleased. In Śrī Vāmana Kalpa it is seen:

yo mantraḥ sa guruḥ sākṣāt yo guruḥ sa hari svayam
gurur yasya bhavet tuṣṭas tasya tuṣṭo hariḥ svayam

“The mantra is nondifferent from the Guru and the Guru is nondifferent from Śrī Hari. When the Guru is pleased with someone, Śrī Hari will also automatically be pleased with that person.”

Srila Ananta das Babaji – Sri Guru-Tattva-Vijnana