śrī śrī guru gaurāṅga jayataḥ!
Year 13, Issue 2
Posted: 20 March 2020
Dedicated to
nitya-līlā praviṣṭa oṁ viṣṇupāda
Śrī Śrīmad Bhakti Prajñāna Keśava Gosvāmī Mahārāja
Inspired by and under the guidance of
Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja
If He Can’t Save Me From the Jaws of Death,
He Is Not a Real Guru
by Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda
It is our duty to determine who is guru and who is of no-consequence (laghu). He alone is guru who serves that complete substantive entity – the only object of worship for all persons of any consequence (gurus). I am not speaking of those gurus who teach the sitar or the art of wrestling. Such gurus cannot save us from death. We find in one of the ślokas of the Bhāgavatam, “That guru is no guru, that father is no father, that mother is no mother, that devatā (demigod) is no devatā, and that kinsman is no kinsman, who cannot save us from the jaws of death, who cannot give us eternal life, who cannot save us from ignorance of our mortality, which takes the form of addiction to this material world.”
We fall into the jaws of death, certainly because of our ignorance. We do not fall into the jaws of death because of reason born of wisdom. If we do not seek the real Truth, we lose the power of knowing. He who cannot rescue us from the jaws of death can only delude us for a certain number of days. He who tempts us by the sensuous impulses of his words, hands, feet, anus and the organ of generation is a cheat. But śrī gurudeva has the power to save us from all deception.
It is my gurudeva who is graciously present in all the different forms. If he is not graciously present in all these forms, who, then, would preserve me? Those who my gurudeva had made his own are my saviours. But may I never have occasion to see the face of that wicked person, that source of evil, who maligns the lotus-feet of my śrī gurudeva or who countenances such a slanderer in any way.
Adapted from The Gauḍīya, Year 20, Issue 6
By the Rays of The Harmonist team
