Hare Krishna,
Dear Guru Maharaja, PAMHO, AGTSP!
From my personal point of view, the senior disciples should be able to serve better the guru, because that devotee has understood the mood of the guru. If he/she is sincere he or she will be able to serve and get others to serve the guru enthusiastically, not harrassing other aspirants to the service.
We ought to learn etiquete to be closer to the guru and to grasp what he wants and what he needs.
We get proud if we are senior disciples, but it should be the opposite, we should be more humble, and inspire other aspirants to create a warm and fired up spiritual environment to serve guru.
How can we understand? We are so tiny to understand what guru is? Who deserves to be closer to the guru? The disciple with more knowledge or the one with more humbleness?
Your very many fallen servant,
Jagat Bandhu Jagannatha Swami dasa.
HpS - AgtSP!!! Paoho. This is such a common question. So common. How to serve Krsna, Guru, anyone, in the company of others.
First, as you say there is the general etiquette. In the story of the Gopis attracted by the flute of Krsna, we see that they were acting like good citizens of Nanda Maharaja's village. They killed cows, sold yogurt and ghee, and paid their taxes.
So, we keep this Blog. We explain in the Kapi Dhvaja and the DTC posts what is our situation and as much as we are trying to be a guru in ISKCON anyone can write here, and then we take some austerity to travel and anyone can join the classes and ask questions.
Then in the general discussions we can see how we need to make detailed discussions.
O.K. Some times disciples say that we, gurus, Brahmanas, leaders, are favoring a certain person, but often it is just that that person takes the effort to communicate. We answer letters from people who write, in the right way.
In our personal limited way, we have some service we are trying to offer to our Guru, the Guru of everyone in ISKCON, Srila Prabhupada. I think we are giving enough news so people can begin to understand and then write, talk with others involved to guide and help them.
These are some basic thoughts.
We just want to find our place in the Sankirtan team, do our formal service, make friends with other devotees, and ultimately through so many channels we all have to have personal relationship with Srila Prabhupada.
