Is Śrīla Prabhupāda the Standard?

In the beginning, we can observe our spiritual master and test him. We must compare him – what do the previous ācāryas say? What does the śāstra say? What do the Vaiṣṇavas say? There has to be a comparative analysis, and then we can decide if he is qualified to be an actual master or not. We are allowed to do that. But once we accept him as our spiritual master, we are not allowed to do that any more.

Nowadays, certain devotees, especially in the west, will tell us, “Prabhupāda is the standard!” But is it? Actually, Prabhupāda is not the standard! That has being created by a certain group of people. Of course, the standard is there – every ācārya sets a standard, but many people claim that, “Prabhupāda’s standard is the only standard.” In other words, if someone does something different from Prabhupāda, it cannot be accepted.

There are individuals who have a supremely powerful position, and they are the standard. Now, to trace out who they are, we will have to look beyond the function that they performed in this world – whether they were preachers, or whether they were bābājīs etc. We have to trace them all the way to Kṛṣṇa’s līlā and understand who they are there? There are many groups surrounding Mahāprabhu – just as in kṛṣṇa-līlā, Kṛṣṇa is surrounded by the immediate eight gopīs (aṣṭa-sakhīs) and their divisions and associates. In gaura-līlā, there is Rāmānanda Rāya and Svarūpa Dāmodara, who are Lalitā and Viśakhā, then there are the Six Gosvāmīs, who have been given the supreme position. Amongst the Six Gosvāmīs, there is one personality in particular who stands out, and that is Rūpa Gosvāmī Prabhupāda. He is the standard. He is the leader. He is the founder of the sampradāya – not just a temporary society which functions according to time and place. The whole conception of Mahāprabhu is invested within him. Others serve Mahāprabhu in their own intimate ways, and they are certainly no less, but for this world, Rūpa Gosvāmī is all important. Sanātana Gosvāmī is his elder brother and his senior, but he has indicated Rūpa. The prayojanācārya, Śrīla Raghunatha Dāsa Gosvāmī also points to Rūpa. All the Gosvāmīs point to Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī. Therefore, all the members of the Gauḍīya sampradāya are called Rūpānugas.

So, we may say that Prabhupāda is the standard, or our guru is the standard, but we cannot reject a Vaiṣṇava if we see that he is different from our Prabhupāda or our guru. If so, then we must also reject Bhaktivedānta Swami Prabhupāda, because he is completely different to his guru, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura. He did so many things without his order. He had to do them. Generally, we only have the external order of the spiritual master. He will tell us, “Stand up! Sit down! Go here! Go there! Do it like this!” But that is only in the beginning. The spiritual master is the external manifestation of the Supersoul. Something is going on within your heart, and something is also going on externally. How to know the spiritual master within the heart? That is at a higher stage. That is a higher platform of understanding the order of the spiritual master. There are different levels of instructions from the spiritual master. If we are focused on a particular external thing, we may reject anything else we encounter because it doesn’t look the way we expect it to. How it looks externally may be important to some degree, but we cannot put our all into that.

For example, generally, Śrīla Prabhupāda said that the devotees should shave once a week. This year, we went to the Kumbha Melā and saw all the devotees shaving their faces and heads every day in the tents. But if you would have been at the Kumbha Melā with Śrīla Prabhupāda in 1977, no one shaved for a month. If you look at some of the old photos of the devotees in Māyāpura and Vṛndāvana, you will see that the men were not shaving, not wearing shirts. They only wore dhotīs and upper cloth and looked very rugged. It wasn’t because they were poor – it is because Prabhupāda had said, “You are in the dhāma. Don’t shave and don’t wear sown cloth. You don’t need these things here.” You will also sometimes see pictures of Sarasvatī Ṭhākura and Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura having full beard.

When Sarasvatī Ṭhākura came to Vrndavana the first time as a sannyāsī, he brought two disciples with him and they were wearing three-piece suits and wearing leather shoes. Everybody was thinking, “What is this? Leather shoes? A suit? Where are their dhotīs? Who is this man?” and when Sarasvatī Ṭhākura went back to Māyāpura, he said, “I could not find any Vaiṣṇavas while I was in Vṛndāvana!”

The bābājīs in Vraja rejected him. They were saying, “He is not a Vaiṣṇava,” and he was saying, “I couldn’t find a Vaiṣṇava.” Of course, there were some, but he was speaking in general.

In the same way, Prabhupāda accepted foreigners and so many people in India rejected him. There was one Rāmānandī guru living next door to us when we had an āśrama in Vṛndāvana, and when we moved in, he told our other neighbours, “What is this? This foreigner is the mahānta of this new āśrama, and the Indians call him ‘guru-jī!’”

The only thing that saved his neck was that he didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Hindi. But if we had sat together – him with a hundred disciples, and me with three – he would still be defeated. Not because I am better, but because of the siddhānta I follow. He would not be able to answer the first ten questions I ask him. He doesn’t even know the names of the seven main temples of Vṛndāvana. Those who can name those seven temples will also know something about Mahāprabhu. They have some connection. But those who don’t know the seven temples, know nothing about Vṛndāvana. They are invaders here! I would like to ask him, “You say, ahaṁ brahmāsmi, so am I American or am I Brahman? And if I am Brahman, why are you so focussed on the colour of my skin? Why are you judging everything externally?”

Śrīla Śrīdhara Maharaja used to tell the story of Gadādhara Paṇḍita and Puṇḍarīka Vidyānidhi. Once, in Navadvīpa, Mukunda Datta asked Gadādhara Paṇḍita, “Perhaps you would like to meet a Vaiṣṇava?”

Gadādhara Paṇḍita told, “Yes, certainly I would like to meet a Vaiṣṇava.”
Then Mukunda took him to the house of Puṇḍarīka Vidyānidhi. When they entered the house of Puṇḍarīka Vidyanidhi, they saw that he was lying on a bed, gorgeously dressed in the best cloth, wearing a beautiful turban, smelling of perfume. He was wearing kajjala, black eye liner, and he was smoking a hookah just like a worldly person.

Gadādhara Paṇḍita thought, “What is this? He is not a Vaiṣṇava” and he immediately started to leave. Then Mukunda said, “Oh, please wait.” Then he sang a verse from the Bhāgavatam, glorifying the mercy of Kṛṣṇa.*When Puṇḍarīka Vidyanidhi heard this, he became instantly mad and he ripped the turban off of his head, and began to beat his chest. He broke his hookah, and tore his clothes from his body. And Gadādhara Paṇḍita said, “My God! What a Vaiṣṇava!”

Of course, any fool can imitate this, but we are not talking about any foolish thing. We are talking about someone who just upon hearing about Kṛṣṇa once, swooned in ecstasy. It is understood that Puṇḍarīka Vidyanidhi is the incarnation of Rādhārāṇī’s father, King Vṛṣabhānu. That is why he was sitting in a kingly fashion, smoking a hookah. Some manifestation was in him showing his gorgeousness and when he heard about Kṛṣṇa, he was carried away with ecstasy. Now, Gadādhara Paṇḍita is considered to be the incarnation of the bhāva of Rādhārāṇī, so, how exalted is his position? Still, he took initiation from Puṇḍarīka Vidyanidhi and that is most appropriate since he is the incarnation of Rādhā, and Puṇḍarīka is King Vṛṣabhānu. It is natural that he is his disciple.
This story shows that we should not judge a Vaiṣṇava by externals. Of course, we will wear tilaka and do so many external things that are appropriate. But if it’s not done, don’t immediately draw a conclusion in your mind. You may be making a mistake. You have to see beyond the externals; you have to look internally for the substance.

Many external things that people propagate in the name of pure bhakti, are not the highest thing. They are in great need of some improvement. And what is their greatest fault? The greatest fault is that the gain of all those people is limited due to their misunderstanding, and with misunderstandings of any type, we run the risk of aparādha. For example, if we think that Śrīla Prabhupāda is the only standard, then we may offend many other Vaiṣṇavas. He may be the heart and soul for a certain group of people, but we cannot say that he is the heart and soul for everyone.

For example, some devotees say, “Prabhupāda said that his books are the lawbooks!” But Śrīla Prabhupāda only said that one time. One time! It takes two seconds to say that! That wasn’t a mandate! We have met so many nice Kṛṣṇa conscious Vaiṣṇavas who are not his disciples – they are his godbrothers, or disciples of his godbrothers – and they have never read his books. Of course, Śrīla Bhaktivedānta Swami Prabhupāda will naturally stand out like a giant. You don’t have to tell the whole world he’s a giant – he will stand out himself. You don’t have to tell a child, “Look! There’s the moon!” The child will automatically see the moon because it stands out amongst all the other things in the night sky. In the same way, Śrīla Prabhupāda will stand out as a giant, but if we try to make him the founder of the entire sampradāya, the origin of it all, then inadvertently we will end up making offences to other Vaiṣṇavas who also have their connection to Śrī Rūpa through proper agents.

One man came to see me the other day, and his externals were tip-top. He was wearing tilaka, he had a shaved head, everything was pakka and he had a good position in a big society – but I couldn’t trace any devotion in him. He was a schemer, a conniver, and a materialist. He was only interested in money, land, and buildings. When Puṇḍarīka Vidyānidhi heard topics about Kṛṣṇa vibrated by a pure devotee, the sound of the highest prospect threw him into complete ecstasy. Of course, we are on a lower platform, but if we have any real interest in bhakti within our heart, then when we hear something of a superior quality which is coming to give us nourishment, we will take interest in that. We cannot reject it. We cannot! If we reject it, then we are not followers of the school of Bhaktivedānta Swami Prabhupāda, we are not followers of Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, we are not followers of Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, and we are not followers of Śrī Rūpa either.

What is that big society teaching? Some dogma! “Do this! Don’t do this!” That is there at the beginning, but that is not Kṛṣṇa consciousness. That is just to protect you from māyā. Kṛṣṇa consciousness is something else. Some devotees think that Kṛṣṇa consciousness means following the four regulative principles, but Kṛṣṇa consciousness has nothing to do with four regular principles! Of course, every devotee must follow those four principles, because they give us a foundation to stand on against heavy māyā. But go to the Rāmānandīs, the māyāvādīs, the Buddhists – they are all atheists and they all follow the four regulative principles. These are just the standards of being a human being. But we hear devotees say, “Follow the regulative principles, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, and you automatically go back to Godhead.” Then why have five-thousand devotees from the Western world blooped? Many of them were chanting, many of them were following the regulative principles. There is much more to it than that. It’s like telling a child, ” Don’t worry, young boy! Go to this school, you’ll get full education, and in the future you’ll be a lawyer.” Then he goes to school and thinks, “I will sit here for fifteen years, do nothing and I’ll become a lawyer.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda did not only make broad statements – he was also very specific sometimes. For one month in 1972, he sat continuously at the samādhi of Rūpa Gosvāmī and gave lectures on Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, of which The Nectar of Devotion is a summary study. Those lectures have never been printed, but in them you will find how he gives importance to the position of Śrī Rūpa, telling that we are all followers of Rūpa Gosvāmī. He was giving so many things, but the gave things according to the capacity and ability of the devotees at the time.

Recently, we read an article about the Śaṅkarācārya of Kanchi. He is almost a hundred years old and he gives darśana to people almost daily. People come and ask him things like, “Can you give blessings for a train reservation? Can you give blessing for visa for Australia or America?” He said, “They come to me with such foolish things.” Generally, Prabhupāda didn’t ask for any questions because the questions were usually cent-percent foolish. One man wrote a letter and asked Prabhupāda, “Can I become a woman?” Prabhupāda replied, “Make a choice and stick with it!” Then someone wrote to Prabhupāda asking, ” Can I have children?” Just see! He’s a śaktyāveśa-avatāra and people are asking him if they can become a woman, if they can have children, if they can stand on their head, if they can cross their legs like a yogī etc! All stupid questions! So generally, he didn’t take questions.” He would just tell, “Eat this, don’t eat this, take this, take that.” Only on rare occasions did he ask for questions.

In the beginning, he saw that some devotees tried to reach very high. From point zero, they tried to reach infinity. There was a group of people who wanted to discuss gopī-bhāva. They were completely unqualified and still in the bodily concept of life. They didn’t even know Brahman, what to speak of gopī or bhāva. They would avoid Bhagavad-gītā, and talk about gopī-bhāva. So he smashed that completely. Here, twenty years later, people are still thinking, “Anybody who talks about gopī or bhāva, must be a rascal.”

That is like when you are three years old and you have a pencil, and you are drawing on the wall. Your father will come in, slap your hand, take the pencil away, and tell you “Don’t do that! Don’t touch that pencil!” But later, after he has expired, you go your whole life looking at that pencil, thinking, “No, I must not touch that pencil!” Even you see all the students at school writing with a pencil, and you are thinking, “What rascals! My father said, ‘Don’t touch that pencil.’”

In reality, when a disciple grows, he may possibly have to cross the order of the spiritual master. That is not a standard expression, but it sometimes happens that way.

For example, you should not step over the body of a Vaiṣṇava, but once, when Mahāprabhu was lying in the doorway, His servant, Govinda, needed to cross over His body in order to massage His legs. He told Mahāprabhu, “Please, my Lord, can you move a little?”
The Lord replied, “No, I am too tired!” And then He went to sleep.
Then Govinda stepped over His body, massaged His legs, and then sat there, trapped in the room. After thirty minutes, Mahāprabhu woke up and saw him. “Why are you still here?”
“I could not come out. You are blocking the doorway.”
“Well, how did you get in?”
“I stepped over You”
“So why didn’t you do that again to come out?”
“No, if I step over You, it will be an offence.”
“Well, if it is an offence, then why did you do it to get in?”
“To serve You, I am ready to make an the offence, but for my own benefit, I will not.”
So, this is one example of breaking a rule, not for one’s own self, but for the pleasure of the Lord and His devotees.

In India, when you plant a tree, you have to put a fence around it to stop the animals from eating it when it is young. Sometimes, Śrīla Prabhupāda would say, “Never leave Iskcon! Stay in Iskcon.” He was putting a fence around us. Why? Because at that time, we were like little trees and we would have been eaten by a big hog or a monkey! In the beginning, you are nothing. If you approach others, they may defeat you. They may spoil your faith and corrupt you. Therefore, Prabhupāda put up a big fence and said, “If you are outside this fence, you are in illusion!”

But if you keep that fence around the tree, eventually as it grows, it will become so big that it will break the fence. Similarly, when you are strong, you will break out. You will not remain hidden, needing protection. There comes a time when a disciple will have to take the initiative. Nowadays, we see that there are many devotees doing different things, but that doesn’t mean that we can drop our guard and say, “Everything he is doing is different than Prabhupāda, but that’s alright – he has taken the initiative.” What is that person’s siddhānta? What is his conception? We will still have to trace everything from Rūpa Gosvāmī.

It is not necessarily about how a person dresses, although that we must appreciate also. There is some standard. But primarily, we have to trace out the siddhānta, not the externals. What is the proper conception? If that is in order, then we may find there may be a reason.

Sometimes I have a beard, and many devotees ask me, “You are a sannyāsī – why do you have long hair now?” That is because I live in a place where our neighbours hate Hare Kṛṣṇas like you wouldn’t believe. They are so disgusted with Iskcon, and to them, every shaven-headed foreigner is an Iskcon angrezi. Therefore, I take this look and dress just to fit a little more comfortably with the environment I live in, and there is a completely different reaction from the people. It’s not something that I made up – we have an order from Śrīla Śrīdhara Mahārāja who said. “If you find some difficulty in your mission living outside the big Iskcon and people give you trouble, then you may wear a turban and grow your beard.” We have that order from our guru.

At any rate, the idea is that you should not judge a thing externally. When some people see me, they say, “He is totally in māyā!” because there is no ability in them to trace out any conception. Rather, we have left their association because they have stopped developing the right conception.

• 📖 Prabhupāda Vijaya (Book)
• Is Śrīla Prabhupāda the Standard? by Śrīla Bhakti Gaurava Narasiṅgha Mahārāja
• My Guru is Rādhārāṇī by Śrīla Bhakti Gaurava Narasiṅgha Mahārāja
• Become Guru! by Śrīla Bhakti Gaurava Narasiṅgha Mahārāja
• Purport to Śrīla Prabhupāda-līlā Smaraṇa-Maṅgala Stotram by Śrīla Bhakti Gaurava Narasiṅgha Mahārāja
• Mahāprabhu as Prabhupāda by Śrīla Bhakti Gaurava Narasiṅgha Mahārāja
• How Great is Śrīla Prabhupāda? by Śrīla Bhakti Gaurava Narasiṅgha Mahārāja
• A Few Words on the Rasa of Śrīla Prabhupāda and the ‘Suicide Squad’ by Śrīla Bhakti Gaurava Narasiṅgha Mahārāja
• The Prākṛta and Aprākṛta-līlā of Śrī Guru by Śrīla Bhakti Gaurava Narasiṅgha Mahārāja
• The Golden Age of the Saṅkīrtana Movement by Śrīla Bhakti Gaurava Narasiṅgha Mahārāja
• Bhaktivedānta by Śrīla Bhakti Gaurava Narasiṅgha Mahārāja
• The Disappearance of a Śaktyāveśa-avatāra by Śrīla Bhakti Gaurava Narasiṅgha Mahārāja
• Śrīla Prabhupāda – A Second Generation Devotee’s Perspective by Gaura Gopāla Dāsa