Spiritual Advancement
September 25, 2017 in Narasimha Dasa by Yasoda nandana dasa
Spiritual Advancement
By Narasimha das
“All these are pitfalls of personal sense gratification. Just to cheat some innocent people, one makes a show of advanced spiritual life and becomes known as a sadhu, mahatma or religious person. All this means that the so-called devotee has become victimized by all these unwanted creepers and that the real creeper of bhakti-lata-bija has been stunted.” (Cc. Madhya 19.160, PURPORT) See purport below.
Any intelligent devotee who knows iskcon history since 1978 to the present day can easily understand the meaning and context of the above statement and how it applies to many or most iskcon leaders. But the question has been raised whether the “innocent people” who follow such posers can make tangible spiritual advancement. Any devotee or group can ask others to chant Hare Krishna and begin devotional life but not every sanga can assist us to advance further. Unless innocent people learn to follow the self-realized acharya and hear from him with rapt attention, they risk losing their innocence by associating with offenders posing as sadhus. This is practically seen all over the world, and most of these innocent people end up leaving the mission or compromising with deviants.
It may be wrong to suggest that because we might not be perfect we therefore have no right to preach or judge who is making spiritual advancement– and who is on a deviant path that leads to degradation. It’s our duty as disciples to try to protect our own devotional service and the mission of the guru. How to do this? We must discriminate to understand and preach the correct path. We must accept the right association with genuine devotees. If we are content remain in a blind society of pretenders, we may leave the path of devotional service and fall down completely.
Srila Prabhupada once said, “I may be perfect or I may not be perfect, but I am repeating the message of the all-perfect Supreme Personality of Godhead without the slightest change. That is perfect.” Read the rest of this entry →