An Intimate Servant

In this connection another example may help. Suppose you know of a very rich, famous, or distinguished personage and want to gain entrance into his house. You cannot go to his home and say, "I make $200 a week so let me in." No-$200 a week or $500 a week or $1000 a week is nothing to him. You have no qualification of your own. But it you have the favor of one of his associates or servants, then by his desire you may enter the rich man's home. Similarly, the intimate associate of the Lord is the spiritual master, and the Lord is anxious to please His pure devotees. The relationship between the Lord and His devotee is transcendentally beautiful. As a devotee is elevated in all good qualities due to his being a devotee of the Lord, so the transcendental glories of the Lord are increased due to His being devoted to His servitor. In other words, as the devotee is always anxious to render service to the Lord, similarly, the Lord is very anxious to render service to the devotee, the bona fide spiritual master.

With confidence in this relationship, the student, out of love, agrees to serve the spiritual master. There is no question of force. Where there is force, there is no love. Our spiritual master, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, once said, "If a father calls his son, 'Come here!' and there is no love, the son will either refuse to come, or he will come reluctantly, thinking secretly, 'How can I get back at my father?' But if I say, 'Satsvarūpa, come here!' you will come immediately, out of excess of love. Is that no right?" Satsvarūpa, one of Srila Prabhupada's students, immediately nodded his head-"Yes!" Thus the service rendered by the student to the bona fide spiritual master is performed out of love. Anyone who sees His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada with his disciples is seeing the perfection of family life.

The mother, the Vedas, directs the child to the father, the bona fide spiritual master, as illustrated so personally in the Gita. Arjuna, who had very great spiritual qualifications as well as material qualifications, still confessed to Krsna, the supreme spiritual master: "Now I am confused about duty, and I have lost all composure because of weakness. In this condition I am asking You to tell me clearly what is best for me. Now I am Your disciple, a soul surrendered unto You. Please instruct me." (Bg. 2.7) By nature's own way, the complete system of material activities is a source of perplexity for everyone. Vedic wisdom therefore advises us that in order to solve the perplexities of life and to understand the science of the solution, one must approach a spiritual master, for a bona fide spiritual master is supposed to know everything.