We have taken upon ourselves the responsibility of welcoming this grave charge. All the
audience have accepted ordinary seats, I alone have been provided with a lofty seat. All are
being told in effect 'Do have a look at a big animal from the Zoo-gardens. What arrogance! So
foolish! So wicked! Have you ever seen such a big brute? Garlands of flowers have been put
round his neck! What laudations! What bombastic long-drawn, and hyperbolic adjectives! And
how complacently too he is listening to the praise of his own achievements, how intently, and
with his own ears! He also evidently feels delighted in mind! Is he not acting in plain violation of
the teaching of Mahaprabhu? Can such a big brute, so selfish and insolent, be ever reclaimed
from brutishness?'
I happen to be one of the greatest of fools. No one offers me good advice on account of my
arrogance. Inasmuch as nobody condescends to instruct me I placed my case before
Mahaprabhu Himself. The thought occurred to me that I would make over the charge of myself
to Him and see what He would advise me to do. Then Shri Chaitanyadeva said to me:
In these verses is to be found the proper explanation of the apparent inconsistency noticed
above.
He whose only teaching is humility greater than that of a blade of grass, said "By My command
being Guru save this land!" In this instance Mahaprabhu Himself has given the command. His
command being 'Perform the duty of the Guru, even as I do it Myself. Also convey this command
to whom-so-ever you chance to meet.' Chaitanyadeva says, 'Tell them these very words viz, by
My command being Guru save this land. Deliver the people from their foolishness.' Now who-so-
ever happens to hear these words would naturally protest with palms joined - 'But I am really a
great sinner; how can I be Guru? You are Godhead Himself, the Teacher of the world. You can
be Guru.' To this Mahaprabhu replies:
'Do not practice the craft of a Guru for the purpose of injuring others through malice. Do not
adopt the trade of a Guru in order to get immersed in the slough of this world. But if you can,
indeed, be My guileless servant you will be endowed with My power - then you need not fear.'
I have no fear. My Gurudeva has heard this from his Gurudeva. And it is for this reason that my
Gurudeva has accepted even such a great sinner as myself and has told me: 'By My command
being Guru save this land.' It is only those who have never heard these words of Gaursundar
who say 'How odd! to listen to one's own praise!' While the Guru is instructing his disciple in the
eleventh Skandha of the Bhagavatam what a great sin, in their opinion, is he not perpetuating!
What is the Acharya to do when he has to explain the Shloka 'Acharya Mam Vijaniyat: Never
disregard the Acharya; never entertain the idea that the Acharya is your equal in any sense.'
These are the words of Shri Krishna Himself by which the jiva is to be benefited. Is the Guru to
take himself off, to desert his seat the seat of the Acharya - from which these words are to be
explained? That office his Gurudeva has conferred on him. If he does not act up to its
requirements he is doomed to perdition by reason of his offense against the holy Name in the
shape of disrespect towards the Guru. He has to do it in spite of the fact that such procedure is
apparently open to the charge of egoism. When the Guru imparts the mantram to the disciple
should he not tell him by this mantram to worship the Guru? Should he say instead, 'Give the
Guru a few strokes of the shoe or the horse-whip?' The Guru is never to be decried. The Guru is
the abode of all the gods. Should the Gurudeva abstain from communicating these words to his
disciple while reading the Bhagavatam to him? 'To him alone who possesses guileless spiritual
devotion, similar to the transcendental devotion that is due to Krishna Himself, to the Gurudeva,
the holy mysteries are manifested.' Is the Gurudeva not to tell these things to his disciples?
'Athau Gurupuja: the worship of the Guru has precedence over all others. The Guru is to be
served just as Krishna is served. The Guru is to be worshipped in a particular way. Is the Guru to
desert his seat without telling all these things to the disciple? In the angle there
is always the defect in the shape of absence of the fullness, the evenness of level, of 180
degrees or of 360 degrees. But in the plain surface, in 360 degrees, there is no such defect. That
in the emancipated state no defect is possible, this simple truth ordinary foolish people entirely
fail to grasp.
As the saying goes, 'having started on the dance it is no use to draw close the veil.' I am doing
the duty of the Guru, but if I preach that no one should shout 'Jai' to me, that is to say, if I say in
a round about way, 'sing Jai to me,' it would be nothing short of duplicity. Our Gurudeva has not
taught us such insincerity. Mahaprabhu has not taught such insincerity. I have to serve God in
the straightforward way. The word of God has come down to the Gurudeva; I have to obey it in
all sincerity. I will not disrespect the Guru at the instance of any foolish or malicious sectarians.
Especially as Shri Gurudeva has directed me saying, 'By My command being Guru save this
land.' This command has my Gurudeva preached. My Gurudeva in his turn has conveyed the
command to me. I will not be guilty of any insincerity in carrying out that command. In this
matter I will not accept the ideal of ignorant, insincere, pseudo-ascetic sectarianism. I will not
learn insincerity. The worldly-minded, the malicious, the pseudo-renunciationists, the selfish
cannot understand how the devotees of God, spurning at everything of this world by command of
God, never, not even for a second, deviate from the service of God through all the twenty-four
hours.
Hypocritical sectarians, pseudo-Vaishnava sects, those sects that cherish internally the longing
for earthly fame, naturally enough think 'what a shame it is for one to listen to the eulogies of
disciples occupying the seat of the Guru.' But every Vaishnava regards everyone of the
Vaishnavas as the object of his veneration. When Thakur Haridas exhibits the attitude of humility
Mahaprabhu says - 'You are the greatest of the world, the crest-jewel of the world. Be agreeable,
let us have our meal together.' He carried in His arms the body of Thakur Haridas which is
eternally existent, self-conscious and full of spiritual bliss. In the community that follows Shri
Rupa, the qualities of desiring no honor for oneself and of readiness to duly honor others are fully
present. Those who detect any disparity are, like the owl, blind while the sun shines. They
commit an offense by such conduct.
If I disobey the law which has come down to me through the chain of preceptorial succession, the
offense due to omission to carry out the command of the Guru will sever me from the lotus-feet
of Shri Gurudeva. If in order to carry out the command of the Vaishnava Guru I have to be
arrogant, to be brutish, to suffer eternal perdition, I am prepared to welcome such eternal
damnation and even sign a pact to that effect. I will not listen to the words of other malicious
persons in lieu of the command of the Gurudeva. I will dissipate with indomitable courage and
conviction the currents of thought of all the rest of the world, relying on the strength
derived from the lotus-feet of Shri Gurudeva. I confess to this arrogance. By sprinkling a particle
of the pollen of the lotus-feet of my Preceptor scores of people like you will be saved. There is
no such learning in this world, no such sound reasoning in all the fourteen worlds, in no man-gods, that can weigh more than a solitary particle of the dust of the lotus-feet of my Gurudeva.
Gurudeva in whom I have implicit trust can never spite me. I am by no means prepared to listen
to the words of any one who wants to hurt me or to accept such a malicious person as my
preceptor.
"Whom-so-ever thou meet'st, instruct him regarding Krishna, By My command being
Guru deliver this land; In this thou wilt not be obstructed by the current of the world;
Thou wilt have My company once again at this place."
"In this thou will not be obstructed by the current of the world; Thou wilt have My
company once again at this place."