Sri Srimad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupada
Aug 01, 2016 — SRIDHAM MAYAPUR (SUN) —
(Regarding how a guru always refers to śāstra and the great ācāryas of our past, otherwise, not referring to them one is simply a ‘self-made’ guru):
Indian man: What about so many saints who are preaching yoga and religion all over the world?
Srila Prabhupāda: Anyone who does not know the science, they are not saint. They are cheaters. If they do not know the science, what is spiritual life, what is material life. So their speaking is simply cheating. Therefore we should state the standard, Bhagavad-gītā, the ācāryas. In the Bhagavad-gītā it is said ācāryopāsanam. Take the ācāryas, Rāmānujācārya, Madhvācārya, even Śaṅkarācārya. So there must be standard. It is… Some of them are manufacturing some spiritual life. Just like Vivekananda did, daridra-nārāyaṇa-sevā. Is there any such word in our Vedic śāstras? Daridra-nārāyaṇa? Nārāyaṇa has become daridra? One has to worship daridra-nārāyaṇa.
Indian man: You don’t agree with what has been preached…
Srila Prabhupāda: Why shall I agree? Because there is no such thing in the śāstra. Is there word, any word, in the whole Bhagavad-gītā, daridra-nārāyaṇa-sevā?
Indian man: No, but what Ramakrishna Paramahaṁsa…
Srila Prabhupāda: Ramakrishna, how he become paramahaṁsa if he does not know the śāstra? That is the difficulty. Everyone becoming self-made guru, self-made avatāra, self-made saint. That is the difficulty. Without any reference to the authentic śāstra.
Indian man: So it’s a very revealing thing, you deny Ramakrishna Paramahaṁsa…
Srila Prabhupāda: I don’t deny. You accept, you accept. My point is unless it is authoritatively mentioned in the śāstra, we reject.
Indian man: But śāstras were written thousands of years ago. Life might have changed.
Srila Prabhupāda: That’s all right. In the śāstras it is not said that after passing of many years the śāstra becomes obsolete. This is another ignorance. Śāstra is not like that. You write some mental speculation and after some years it changes. That is not śāstra. Śāstra is this… Just like the Bhāgavata was, five thousand years ago it was it was written… And the symptoms of Kali, Kali-yuga is written there in the Twelfth Canto.
Indian man: The complete purport was written five thousand years back.
Srila Prabhupāda: Yes.
Indian man: But most of the scholars, they say…
Srila Prabhupāda: He is not a scholar. He’s a rascal. We have to follow the ācāryas. The ācāryas never said. There are so many ācāryas. They never say. So, we have to follow, ācāryopāsanam, not the rascals. We cannot worship the rascals. Worship ācāryas. They are guide. So śāstra says… Find out sa evāyaṁ māyā te ‘dya yogaḥ proktaḥ purātanaḥ. Purātanaḥ, Kṛṣṇa says that imaṁ vivasvate yogaṁ proktavān ahaṁ avyayam [Bg. 4.1], “I spoke this science to Vivasvān, the sun-god.” So if you calculate sun, this sun, Vivasvān, is the father of Manu, Vaivasvata Manu. And if you take, calculate, it becomes forty millions of years.
So this Bhagavad-gītā is spoken, according to the Bhagavad-gītā, according to the version of Kṛṣṇa, forty millions of years ago. Now He says that science was known to the people by paramparā. And that paramparā is lost somehow or other. Therefore as… [break] Suppose you are born in Bombay, but you do not know how the state is being managed, then what is my jñāna? If you do not know how the state is being managed then what is your jñāna? That jñāna is, dogs and cats, they have also jñāna. How to eat, how to sleep, how to use sex life, how to defend. This is not jñāna. Everyone knows it. If you know God, who is conducting the whole, that is jñāna. So if you do not know who is the supreme controller…
(Press Interview: Bombay 31 Dec 1976) BY: SRI VRINDAVAN DAS
Aug 01, 2016 — SRIDHAM MAYAPUR (SUN) —
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