Devotee: Today is my birthday. According to the almanac, it is the most inauspicious day of the year.
Śrīla Śrīdhar Mahārāj: No. This is the happiest and most fortunate day, because on this day you came to Guru and Kṛṣṇa. Many birthdays have already passed, but this birthday has brought you in connection with Kṛṣṇa. So this day should be respected not only by your disciples, friends, and relatives; you should also have respect for this day. Kṛṣṇa has blessed you.
Time is also described in the Chaitanya-charitāmṛta in a verse recorded by Rāmānanda Rāy: ye kāle vā svapanedekhinu Vaṁśī-vadane. Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī says, “When in My trance, I came to have a divine vision of Kṛṣṇa, two enemies suddenly appeared: ecstasy, and also a feeling which is corresponding to extreme love in complete self-surrender. In that state, I could not see Kṛṣṇa very clearly. These two enemies disturbed Me. Ecstasy was My enemy, for it made Me self-forgetful, and My greed for His touch was another enemy. They did not allow Me to have a clear vision of Kṛṣṇa, so My thirst for seeing Him was unquenched.
A divine vision of Kṛṣṇa
“If by good fortune I have another chance to have His darśan, divine vision, then what should I do? Avoiding Kṛṣṇa, I shall instead try to worship time. I shall worship that moment, that minute, that second in which I have the divine vision of Kṛṣṇa. I shall try to propitiate time, so that time itself may stay for some time. With garlands, sandal-wood paste, and jewels, I shall try to worship time and not Kṛṣṇa. If time stands still, being propitiated with My respectful behaviour, then Kṛṣṇa will remain. In this way, I shall try to fix the time, ‘You please stay here for some time. Kṛṣṇa is showing Himself—Time, you be eternal here.’ Otherwise, like lightning, Kṛṣṇa comes and vanishes.”
We worship the time, the land, the place, the paraphernalia of Kṛṣṇa. Anything in connection with Kṛṣṇa is chinmay, transcendental. The paraphernalia of Kṛṣṇa is worthy of our worship. In fact, we shall have to honour Kṛṣṇa’s paraphernalia even more than Kṛṣṇa Himself. That is the clue to success. Kṛṣṇa’s abode, His paraphernalia, and His devotees have a relationship with Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa-sambandha. They are Kṛṣṇa’s devotees, and He is at their disposal. So, if we can propitiate them, they will take interest in us and take us up into that realm. Otherwise we are helpless. In the Padma-purāṇa, it is said:
ārādhanānāṁ sarveṣāṁ
viṣṇor ārādhanaṁ param
Once, Pārvatī Devī asked Lord Śiva, “Of all kinds of worship, whose worship is best?” Lord Śiva told her plainly, “The worship and devotional service of Lord Nārāyaṇ, Viṣṇu, is the highest.” Pārvatī became a little mortified and disappointed, thinking, “But I am serving Śiva, so I hold a lower position.” Then the next line came:
tasmāt parataraṁ devi
tadīyānāṁ samarchanam
“But higher than the worship of Nārāyaṇ is worship of the devotees of Lord Nārāyaṇ. That is even greater than devotion to the Lord Himself.” Then Pārvatī smiled, thinking,
“I am serving the devotee of the Lord. Śiva is a devotee: Vaiṣṇavānāṁ yathā Śambhuḥ. So, I am doing the best thing.”
This is also confirmed by Kṛṣṇa, in the Ādi-purāṇa:
ye me bhakta-janāḥ pārtha
na me bhaktāś cha te janāḥ
mad-bhaktānāṁ cha ye bhaktās
te me bhaktatamā matāḥ
“Those who worship Me directly are not real devotees; real devotees are those who are devoted to My devotees.”
And this principle is true in our own experience. It is said, “If you love me, love my dog.” How intense one’s love for his master must be if he can love the master’s dog. And he loves the dog only because it is his master’s dog; not that he wants to take away the dog for himself. He loves it not with the idea of independent love for the dog, but because it is the master’s dog.
This is a higher test of our love than simply to love the master. This will test whether we are really lovers. Kṛṣṇa is more pleased if He sees that His servant is being served. Why? Because His servant always serves Him, but he won’t take anything in return from Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa tries to give His devotees something, but they won’t take it. They have no aspiration to fulfil, no petition to enter in the course of their service. They want only cent per cent service. There is no possibility for Kṛṣṇa to award any remuneration there; He can’t find the slightest hole in their devotional service through which some remuneration can be pushed. His devotees are wholesale servants, and nothing but.
Kṛṣṇa tries His best to give something to His devotees in return for their service, but He fails. So, when Kṛṣṇa sees that His desired aim of rewarding His servants is being done by someone else, He becomes indebted to that person thinking, “What I wanted to do for My servant, he is doing. I wanted to do that, but failed; it was not accepted. But now someone else is doing the same thing I wanted to do.” Kṛṣṇa is more favourable to the devotee who serves His servant. Then Kṛṣṇa comes to serve him. That is the underlying purpose of His saying “Those who are devotees of My devotee, they are the real devotees of My heart.” So bhakta-pūjā, worship of the devotees, is the best kind of worship. This statement is confirmed in the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, in the Vedas, and by Vṛndāvan Dās Ṭhākur in the Chaitanya-bhāgavat:
āmāra bhaktera-pūjā—āmā haite baḍa
Bhakta-pūjā, worship of the devotees, is advocated everywhere. At the same time we should try to understand who is a devotee. That is also to be ascertained. What is the sign of a real devotee?
Kṛṣṇa says, “Those who say they are directly devoted to Me are not devotees proper; those who are devotees of My devotees are My real devotees.” We should try to follow the principle of this saying. This is not a perverted remark, but there is some genuine reality in it. If we look for its inner meaning, we will reach the conclusion our Guru Mahārāj has announced. He said, “We are śuddha-śākta, worshippers of the pure potency, not the mundane potency.” We worship the potency who is wholesale dedicated to the potent without retaining Her individual independence as a separate entity at all, who is cent per cent dependent on Kṛṣṇa. Such a potency as this is very, very rarely to be conceived.
The direct approach to Kṛṣṇa is improper. One must approach Him through the proper channel, through the devotees. That is the real approach. Therefore, Gauḍīya Maṭh eliminates Mirabai and so many other apparently great devotees from the category of real devotees because, although they are mad in praise of Kṛṣṇa, they have little regard for the real devotees of Kṛṣṇa.
Spiritual bureaucracy
Kṛṣṇa is not alone. A king is always present with his entourage, his great establishment. If one is really to approach the king, it must be done through the proper channel. Kṛṣṇa is always surrounded by a big hierarchy, a big bureaucracy, and one cannot approach Kṛṣṇa directly. He whose approach is real must select a proper channel. He cannot but praise those devotees and revere them for their magnanimity. It is only by their help that we can get the nearness of Kṛṣṇa. Should we think it possible that one can take a jump across the whole system and approach the king? It is unreal.
Someone may be externally engaged in such a way that apparently he is a great devotee of Kṛṣṇa, but if he eliminates the devotees, that devotion has not taken real shape; it is a vague thing. He is far away from Kṛṣṇa. Suppose we take as an example the highest peak in the Himalayas, Mount Everest. We can see Mount Everest from far off. But to approach Mount Everest, we must pass through so many closer mountain peaks. When our approach to Mount Everest is genuine, we cannot avoid discovering the name and characteristic of other peaks surrounding Mount Everest. But from far off we can see only Mount Everest and not the other peaks surrounding it. So, when we say that our connection is with Kṛṣṇa alone, then we are far off. If we are to actually approach the king, we must approach him through his entourage. If we are actually to approach Everest, we cannot but have a connection with the nearer peaks surrounding that highest peak. So, if we are practically engaged in approaching Kṛṣṇa, our approach will be realistic only when we are engaged with the many devotees in different departments of service to Kṛṣṇa.
The real test of devotion
I noted when we were preaching in South India, that whenever any gentleman who was a renowned devotee in a particular place approached our Guru Mahārāj, Śrīla Bhakti Siddhānta Saraswatī Ṭhākur Prabhupād, he used to ask such men, “Under whose guidance does your devotional service to Kṛṣṇa go on?” Generally they used to say,
“No, no, I am directly concerned with Lord Kṛṣṇa and Lord Rāma.” Then, when they went away, we heard our Guru Mahārāj say, “He has no devotion.” That person was dismissed as an imitation devotee. That is a vague kind of devotion. It has not taken any particular shape because he is ignoring the āśraya, the shelter-giving devotees in the positions surrounding the Lord. That is the great test of devotion.
Śrīla Bhakti Siddhānta Saraswatī Ṭhākur always used to say, “I ama servant of the servant of the Vaiṣṇavas.”
Otherwise, without taking shelter of a devotee, if one shows great devotion, what is his motive? Generally they think, “We want liberation, not the service of Kṛṣṇa. To earn liberation, we are accepting the devotion of Kṛṣṇa.” That is a lower form of worship—worldly worship—not real worship in the transcendental plane. That is not eternal, but temporary. Devotion to the Lord must not be sub-servient to any other aim of life. The desire for liberation is one criterion of an imitation devotee, and another criterion is the neglect of elevated devotees. When the Lord alone is being worshipped, that is also false. These two kinds of apparent devotional practices which are generally seen in the world may be dismissed. But the world does not get any news of all these things.
Devotee: So, the Spiritual Master is sometimes called the Āśraya-vigraha, the personality of whom one must take shelter?
Śrīla Śrīdhar Mahārāj: Yes. Just as in the beginning one sees the forest from a distance, but in the end he enters the inner circle of the forest, so from far off Kṛṣṇa alone appears to be the āśraya, the giver of shelter, but when we approach Kṛṣṇa more closely, we will find our shelter among his devotees. Our real shelter is found within His inner circle of servitors, not with Kṛṣṇa directly.
We are of a vitiated nature, but there are those who under no circumstances deviate from Kṛṣṇa. They are the eternal paraphernalia of the Lord. They are not like us; they are eternally connected with Kṛṣṇa, but we are sometimes coming and going away; we are unreliable servitors. That is our position, so we cannot claim the same position as the absolute servitors of the Lord. Under their guidance we can be given the chance of service, so we must accept that position. We are recruits, we are not amongst the permanent servitors of Kṛṣṇa. We must perform our service under a bona fide superior. The new followers must be gradually accommodated under some bona fide, permanent servitors in the land of Kṛṣṇa.