Is the spiritual master an eternally liberated soul or a soul who has become purified by spiritual practice?

Transcriptions:

Is the spiritual master someone who has descended from the spiritual world? Or is it a Jeeva who has practiced sadhana and attained perfection? If we consider the latter, consider the former, then how do we understand that sometimes there are the spiritual master also falls? The answer, in general, Prabhupada did not encourage much speculation about this. Nor did Prabhupada make repeated definitive claims about this. When Prabhupada was asked the meaning in the Mangalaarthi prayer about Nikunjayunorathikeli Siddhyayi, he simply said, variants of that’s none of your business.

And he did not repeatedly say that he had been sent by Krishna to this world. In the Bhagavad Gita purport, while illustrating the principle of how bhakti is or spirituality in general is continued across lifetimes, in the section from 637 to 45, where the deviated yogi is either born in a wealthy family, a pious family, or if very advanced, in a highly devoted family. So Prabhupada puts both his spiritual master and himself in that category.

Now that could be just like Prabhupada out of his humility, illustrating a principle rather than making a factual statement about his previous life. And his subsequent journey into this life. But the point I’m making is that Prabhupada didn’t put any statements about his spiritual status in his purports.

In Bhaktivinoda Thakura, in his, not spiritual status, his spiritual, his origin in his purports, Bhaktivinoda Thakura, while at one place says that he realized his eternal identity, another place he also says that he didn’t get into, that if you look at his life story, he says as if he came to bhakti gradually and through a long journey. It could be that he was an eternal associate who was arranged by Krishna to go through a journey before he came to bhakti. But then that journey involved worshipping Shakti, worshipping the goddess as a family deity, and even eating meat.

But then this went on to become an exalted soul. So overall, overall, if a disciple wants to have that particular conception as the, as something like a food, faith booster for them, then they have the right to do so. And I don’t think anybody else has a right to challenge or falsify that conception for a disciple.

At the same time, the matter of concern is where, because of the conception of the spiritual master as an eternal associate of the Lord, and has descended from the spiritual world, if the disciple is no longer using one’s intelligence in the practice of bhakti, in the practice of applying the instructions of the spiritual master, then if the disciple ends up outsourcing one’s intelligence to the spiritual master and accepting whatever the spiritual master says without considering shastra, without considering the fact that there is a paramatma in our heart who can manifest as our inner voice to guide us, then that utter rejection of the overall system of checks and balances, which is given in scripture, can lead one either to, can lead one to the kind of blind following that is not recommended at all. So, if some disciples cannot have that conception of their spiritual master as an eternal associate, that should not be considered offensive or even disrespectful. What is important is that they take the guidance of the spiritual master seriously, and taking it seriously doesn’t just mean uncritically doing whatever the spiritual master tells them to do, but following the spiritual master the way the tradition and the scriptures have set an example, the end result of which would be that the disciple gets a deeper understanding of scripture and a disciple comes closer to Krishna, not just comes closer to the guru at the cost of the exclusion of everything else.

So, in many of these spiritually exalted or esoteric domains of spirituality, the origin is, questions of origin are not as important as the questions of effect. That is, what we believe about where the spiritual master came from is not as important as where the nature of our relationship with our spiritual master leads us. Thank you.