Dear Guru Maharaja, please accept my humble obeisances. Srila prabhupada ki jay!
Please can you kindly enlighten me on the following subject?
In the purport SP writes:
The Personality of Godhead may not be present before one's eyes, but if one is sincere in wanting such guidance the Lord will send a bona fide person who can guide one properly back home, back to Godhead ....
...The bona fide representative of God is as good as God Himself. Or, in other words, the loving representative of the Lord is more kind and more easy to approach. A sinful soul cannot approach the Lord directly, but such a sinful man can very easily approach a pure devotee of the Lord. And if one agrees to put himself under the guidance of such a devotee of the Lord, he can also understand the science of God and can also become like the transcendental pure devotee of the Lord and thus get his liberation back to Godhead, back home for eternal happiness.
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I gusss a bonafide representative is spiritual master. If Krsna sends a bonafide representative to the sincere soul, what happens if that representative stops practicing Krsna consciousness? Could it be that Krsna takes him away for some reason (as Krsna also sends)? If yes, what that means? If not, then was that representative bonafide?
your servant Namacarya das
ASA - HpS - AGTSP!!! paoho. Big topic, no? At the end of NOI Text 5, Srila Prabhupada says that Srila Rupa Goswami advises the devotee to be intelligent enough to distinguish between the kanistha, madhyama.... Then we engage in the Dadati - Pratighrnati in terms of the devotees advancement. So the bona fied representative can be kanistha, madhyama or uttama. Lord Caitanya and Srila Prabhupada from the highest position are engaging new devotees and advancing devotees as siksa gurus. They are his bona fide representatives, they give us good advice. They show us the maha-mantra from the little card while we are with the Hari-nama party in the street. They show us how to cook vegetarian food and offer it to Krsna.
They direct us to an uttama adhikary, the Acharya, Prabhupada.
Yet, they may have accidental falldowns because they are on the 3rd and 2nd class platform. How that affects our relationship with our Acharya, Srila Prabhupada, is, of course, different depending on the details of the situation, but basically we should know that Srila Prabhupada and our service to him is still there in its broad clear outlines and then we an work on improving the details, adjusting to the ever changing situation of relating to his servants in their various stages.
Of course, fall down because of envy, offenses, can happen at the paramahamsa or bhava bhakti stage, like Bharata Maharaja or NOI 6 "As soon as anyone becomes envious, he falls from the platform of paramahamsa".
Of course, here we see the subtle distinction of becoming envious being pushed on you by the environment, accidental falldowns, and the conscious choice to be envious, falldown from Bhava or even Prema or even Vaikuntha as we understand by misuse of our little independence.
Is O.K?
If anyone else asks the question we will ask you to answer it!
