Accepting a guru as a matter of fashion - Examining the underlying motivation

Indeed, in some groups and movements, gurus come knocking on your door. It doesn't get easier than that. Indeed, often people just do that due to being socially acceptable, or having their own cool spiritual daddy, with little concern for the real purpose of sri-guru-tattva.

Some of us, however, have traveled to India in search of a guru who is capable of teaching us the path to our highest aspirations, and many of us have had to sacrifice a lot of money and live in austere conditions there, and often to even forsake a circle of friends or an entire community that did not find our choice agreeable. Many have even run into trouble within the family in their pursuit for their most cherished goals.


For those, who have cast aside considerations for society, friendship and love in pursuing a connection that will lead them to their cherished goal, the guru has not come cheaply. And even then, sometimes the guru may not be as good as desired. What, then, to speak of the chances of those who have had the guru knocking on their door, and have done little endeavor and praying to truly meet a guru who can teach them the mysteries of prema-rasa?

Dear Madhava,

Thank You so much for writing this. I really feel always more than fortunate, that my family and myself went to India to be initiated by Our Baba.

I can say that i am overwhelmed by my Gurudeva on a daily basis (as well as my family) since i saw first time his picture, and what to speak of that day when i saw Him for the first time.

You can feel it definitely, a 100% that the person in front of you is not an ordinary person. You just feel it deep inside your body, when you see Sri Gurudeva, and all the hairs on your body go straight up.

I wish that i can be austere like you mentioned every 6 months, every year. Seeing Gurudeva is believing....

Well, that's hardly exclusive to those who go to India searching for a guru. Many of my friends and I, when confronted with the necessity of surrendering to the guru, turned our backs on family, friends, lovers, education, and careers to do what we felt we must to approach and satisfy our guru. The poverty we embraced was rather profound, especially when you consider that we came from very well-to-do backgrounds and were members of one of the most spoiled generations in history (or so some say).

For me, there was no drive to have a guru to show off, or to join any movements. I had just finished a term with the US Navy, and I had no desire to ever join anything again. I had checked out several of the gurus then in fashion and concluded that the whole guru thing was probably a load of crap. What did drive me was a desire to know what God was like and what I was supposed to do with my life. I remember wondering about just what God was like as for back as age 6 or 7, However, I was spontaneously attracted by the maha-mantra, which I probably first hear when the noncommercial underground FM radio station in Honolulu played the cut from the Hair soundtrack. I was even more strongly and immediately attracted by the sankirtan party (in my case the first encounter was at a Jimi Hendrix concert in Honolulu in May of 1969). It seemed strangely familiar to me, and I never forgot that night in the ensuing months, regardless of what else was going on in my life (and there was a lot!). When I started investigating, it was some time before I admitted that this was my guru, and that came only after several months of chanting and reading Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam (remember, I wasn't about to join anything), but the first time I saw him, I was, to my great surprise, so overwhelmed with emotion that all I could do was cry. And I waited a long time to submit myself for initiation (and even longer for mantra diksa).

In the meantime, all my friends rejected me, my family was aghast, and a romance of several years completely dissolved. I went from a very comfortable (if not satisfying) upper-middle-class American life to one of poverty and social paraiah-ship. Even now, although my family has eventually become accustomed to my odd priorities, I seem to find the degree of material comfort enjoyed by my old associates elusive.

For his part, my guru gave up a sometimes-successful business career and his family (for whom he must have felt considerable affection and responsibility, regardless of any differences in commitment to spiritual life) and left home with no money or even a change of clothes because his guru called. Later, he gave up the austere but satisfying life of a sadhu in Vrindavan for even greater austerity: an ocean voyage to an uncertain future. Most of us would find it hard to imaging a Bengali gentleman from a nice family voluntarily becoming homeless in New York in the winter. (And I lived in the Wahington DC are then and clearly remember that winter; in two weeks we had three blizzards. During one of them, my car was buried in snow drifts as my fiance and I visited friends in the evening, which we were doing because we couldn't drive into town, the snow fell so heavily. We were stranded for three days at that house, which was probably only about 1/2 mile from her home and 3/4 mile fror mine.) My gurudeva's friend and siksa guru concluded that he had certainly emptied himself of all desire except to follow Nityananda Prabhu's example and do whatever it took to make Mahaprabhu's mesage widely available, regardless of our eligibility.

Even now, I find strength to persist in the instructions he has given me (and continues to give me) and in his example, just as I did then in the honest concern I found in the few face-toface meetings I had with him. I have alluded previously to the profound, and unexpected, experience I had the first time I chanted the mantras he gave, particularly the Gopal mantra, but also the Kama-gayatri. I still feel that today, and my experience with the holy name still grows ever more profound, and in greater proportion than can be accounted for by my effort.

This is not intended to denigrate Ananta das Babji or any other pure servant of Mahaprabhu, nor to challenge or complain about anyone else's post. Neither is it intended to compare my guru with anyone else's, or assert that he's better than anyone else's. Perhaps it's meant to blunt any comparisons implied by others' posts. I hope that it doesn't seem defensive and that it puts no one here on the defensive.

As a clarification, I wish to add that though in the original context this primarily referred to some modern Gaudiya groups, the scenario is very similar among traditional Vaishnava families and in Bengali society in general. It comes so easy you don't even think much of it.

Now, of course we may say that that's due to their past lives' piety, and that's probably true. Nevertheless, we are living here and now, and we need to consider the gravity of the matter without waiting for the next lifetime or the favorable winds of fate.

It looks as though I missed some of the context. That sounds more like an accusation from someone who hasn't been active here lately, rather than Rasaraja, if my guess is correct. Anyway, it makes more sense to me now that I examine the opening post here again. I apologize for anything in my post that appears self serving. Nevertheless, I'll pobably leave it alone in case there's something worth considering.

I certainly appreciate this. This is not something to rush into or take cheaply; neither is it something to ignore because it seems troublesome to find sad-guru.

Yes, that would be a correct assumption. The opening quote has Rasaraja challenging a person who makes an accusation that we have found our gurus cheaply.

Your post was very thoughtful and welcome, please, by all means, leave it intact.