Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudeva.
In our last offering, we saw how much importance 'unflinching trust' plays its role in the relationship between the spiritual master and the disciple. We shall meditate further on how important it is to listen to the instructions of the spiritual master and following them.
8. Unflinching Trust in our Guru Perfects our Life: When the hunter convinced of his grievous sins and also that Narada muni is his only savior, he told Narada muni that whatever you say, I shall do.
Herein we come to the most significant point in this story. Narada muni ordered the hunter, ‘First of all, break your bow. Then I shall tell you what is to be done.’
This is the real test of our faith in the spiritual master. Most of the time, we will not be able to fathom or conceive what the spiritual master orders. We might be convinced that it is completely impractical. But if we keep our mundane intelligence aside and with full faith follow the orders of the spiritual master, we will be part of the miracle. If we are not ready to serve, he will engage any other sincere devotee who is convinced of his purity and far-sightedness and fulfill his service.
So when the hunter was told to break his bow by Narada muni, he couldn't accept it initially. He honestly put his concern in front of his spiritual master Narada muni, 'If I break my bow, how shall I maintain myself?' This is a very important aspect in the relationship between the spiritual master and the disciple. The disciples are not prohibited from asking questions, they are advised only to not challenge the spiritual master with a lack of faith. Otherwise Krishna would not have added pariprashnena as one of the conditions in the guru & sishya relationship.
Many times the disciples have questions but due to fear of getting answers negative to their liking, or fear of being exposed, they refrain from expressing their minds completely to the spiritual master. Our spiritual master H H Mahavishnu Goswami Maharaj once made a very important observation to his disciple in this regard - "To the degree you are frank and reveal your mind to me, to that degree only my solution will work for you. Even though the solution is fool proof, if you reveal only 75% of your mind, my solution will work only 75%. If you reveal 100%, my solution will also work 100%." So the solution's effectiveness depends on our faith and conviction in the spiritual master, not on the technical efficiency of the solution from a mundane point of view.
The hunter was not yet aware of Krishna being the suhrdam sarva bhutanam, but he was convinced of his guru Narada muni's potency. His problem was he was thinking that he was maintaining his life with the bow and arrow and hence he can't live without it but Narada muni having a higher vision knew that the hunter was maintained by Krishna and not by his bow and arrow. So essentially, even if we do not know (or not qualified to know) the highest truth, but if we fully trust the spiritual master who has seen the highest truth, then our life is perfect.
Krishna willing, we will delve further into this important point in the subsequent offering.
Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudeva,
Kalacakra Krsna das
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