Is there no hope of attaining auspiciousness without serving the guru?
How can we attain auspiciousness if we reject the well-wisher who has come to bestow auspiciousness? The spiritual master comes from vaikuntha. The Lord has sent him. How can we go back to Godhead if we renounce his shelter and association? The spiritual master’s mercy is the root of all the auspiciousness. What have we actually done to receive his mercy? Rather, we should renounce our false ego and offer our respectful obeisances at his feet. To give up the false ego that “I am the seer,” “I am the enjoyer,” is called offering obeisances. That is why the word “namah”, obeisance, is added to mantras.
Receiving the spiritual master’s mercy destroys the sinful mentality that “I am the doer.” Receiving the spiritual master’s mercy awakens the pride that “I am the Lord’s servant.” Material pride, false ego, and all sinful mentalities are removed simply by his influence.
I was not accustomed to worshiping my spiritual master every day, but by his mercy I came to know that my only duty was to serve his lotus feet. It is everyone’s duty to worship the self-realized spiritual master and follow in his footsteps. We should not follow the blind. The spiritual master is our only well-wisher; our only relative, and our only protector. Only by his mercy are we fortunate enough to know this.
After attaining the lotus feet of my spiritual master, I no longer maintained the mentality that without his service I have something else to do. When my spiritual master, who is the Lord’s dearest servant, mercifully imparted knowledge of Nandanandana’s service to me to protect me from false ego, I realized that the living entities have no other duty than to gratify Krsna’s senses. Nandanandana is the only worshipable Lord, the life, and soul and ornament of all living entities. The spiritual master is extremely dear to that Nandanandana.
An unqualified person like me cannot serve such a spiritual master with body, mind and speech, yet my spiritual master, who is an ocean of mercy and affection, empowers me out of his causeless mercy and treats me with an abundance of love. He is so merciful! If I can attain his mercy, if I can realize that I have no other well-wisher in this material world, then simply by his causeless mercy I will be able to attain the qualification to engage in his service. He is pleased by affectionate service. On the day he bestows his causeless mercy on me and becomes pleased with me I will properly understand hari-katha. Then nothing other than the service of guru and Krsna will remain important to me.
We should always pray to the spiritual master to become qualified to accept his causeless mercy and empowerment. There is nothing with which to compare the spiritual master’s mercy. I am so unfortunate that I do not consider the spiritual master great. Although the supreme personality of Godhead, Krsna, is controlled by his devotion, still, I am unable to show gratitude for his causeless mercy on me.