Accept A Spiritual Master

When one accepts a spiritual master, it is to be understood that one is voluntarily accepting a great personality whose rules and regulations must be obeyed. The attitude of the disciple should be "Whatever you say, I will accept." One with such an attitude is called sisya. In English this is called disciplined. In English the words discipline and disciple are related, so in both English and Sanskrit languages a disciple is one who accepts the discipline of the spiritual master. It is not that the spiritual master whimsically manufactures his own rules and regulations for the disciples. He always refers to the sastras, scriptures. Therefore, Narottama Dasa Thakur says sadhu sastra guru, etc.: If one wants to know who is a spiritual master and who is a saintly person, then one should corroborate them with the sastra to see if they are abiding by or following the sastra. If the spiritual master says something that is not in the sastra, that is not good. Similarly, a saintly person also, a mahatma, cannot disregard the regulative principles of scripture. "Anyone, therefore, who acts whimsically, not caring for the regulations of the scriptures, can never have perfection in his life, nor happiness, nor the supreme destination. One should understand what is duty and what is not duty by the regulations of the scriptures. Knowing such rules and regulations, one should act so that he may gradually be elevated." (Bg. 16.23-24) Nor can one be happy in this life if one disregards the injunctions of the scriptures. "But ignorant and faithless persons who doubt the revealed scriptures go to ruin and perish. For the doubting soul there is happiness neither in this world nor the next." (Bg. 4.40) And what to speak of liberation? Thus tapasya means voluntarily accepting the rulings of the scriptures, the spiritual master and saintly persons and molding one's life in that way.