Special Guru Bhakti

Question:

“I feel that I do something wrong. I have more love and bhakti for my Gurudeva than I have for the Divine Couple…Can you help me?”

Answer:

Congratulations. You can be very happy, because bhakti to Sri Gurudeva is everything and everything will come from it.
Gurudeva is not the ultimate goal, but without him and his mercy, nothing will ever happen and all realizations will come from the fixation on the lotus feet of Sri Gurudeva (your siddha deha, his siddha deha, Radha Mohan, your seva, etc….)

My Gurudeva writes about this special 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 initiates 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. This is then called ordinary service to the Guru.

By worshipping the Guru as an item of His worship of the Supreme Lord the sādhaka attains the fruits of love of God. It is a rule in the kingdom of sādhana that worship of the Lord will be successful when it is endowed with earnest 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 through this truth Lord Hari 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 non different from the Guru and the Guru is non different from Śrī Hari. When the Guru is pleased with someone, Śrī Hari will automatically be pleased with that person also.”