28 Jan 2013

bonafide teacher..........

The first six chapters of Bhagavad-gita are dealing with karma, the second six chapters are dealing with Bhakti and the third six chapters are dealing with jnana. Now, one may say, that means karma and then Bhakti and then ultimately jnana? No, that is not the real understanding. The real understanding is, when you have something very valuable, where do you keep it? Do you keep it outside or keep it in the middle? You protect it. So that is what Krishna did.

although Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and He gave the knowledge, but we cannot really converse with Krishna. Like knowledge is based on question and answers. When you don’t understand, what do you do? You have to ask. You have to present :”Well, can you please explain this or what I cannot understand?” Now, we can’t do that with Krishna. Therefore Krishna’s representatives are there who we can ask and who can explain it to us. And that representative of Krishna is the spiritual master. So, we need a spiritual master to ask questions to who can dispel our doubts. But his qualification is that he simply repeats what Krishna has said. He doesn’t concoct something new. And that is why he is a bona fide representative of Krishna. Like for example, you can take a book. But can you master the subject just by reading the book yourself? It is practically impossible. For example if you want to become a doctor. There are so many books on that science. But just by studying those books, can you become a doctor? No. but you go to the faculty university, medical science, and you study under the guidance of the teachers. And, after three, four or five years, you become a qualified doctor. Because you understood the subject. What is present in the books, has been simplified by this people, the teachers. And that is how you have mastered the subject. Similarly the spiritual knowledge also must be received through the guidance of a bona fide teacher. And those bona fide teachers are the spiritual masters. And their qualification is, that they represent Krishna. They present the way, the knowledge has been given by Krishna. And they have received to knowledge as it has been presented by Krishna, because they have received it from a person who had mastered the subject himself.

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