What Is Anugatya?

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
2 July 2013, Sri Nabadwip Dham, part 1

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said that anugatya, or surrender, means to serve the Lord under the guidance of the Guru, but anugatya can be of different kinds, it depends upon the devotee. I have told it many times, and Gurudev also told it many times: there are 60% devotees, 20% devotees, 80% devotees, and so on. The quality of a devotee depends only on anugatya, surrender. If you can give 80% of yourself to your Guru, you will get 80%. Those can give 100%, they will get 100%.

Gurudev also said that when your Guru tells you something, you may have no doubt about it, but if there is some confusion—sometimes we do not tell it, but we have some confusion inside, we always think about it—this is also not complete, not 100% anugatya. The same is true for everything we do—Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said that we may do sixty-four types of bhaktyanga, we may do the five main bhaktyanga (we do sankirtan, we do sravan, kirtan, we do sadhu-sanga, we do some service, etc.), but if we do not have proper anugatya, proper surrender (if there is not 100% anugatya in it), then it all goes to karma and reaction will come to you.

When Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur got initiation from his Gurudev, Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj, he was a small boy, but how many times did Babaji Maharaj tell him to get out? How many times did he tell him, "You will not get initiation!"? How long Srila Prabhupad had to wait to take initiation. Babaji Maharaj thought, "How much does this boy believe in me? How much faith does he have in me? How much can he surrender to me?" He was testing and checking how deep his devotion and faith for him was. In the same way, Gurudev also chastised us, he told his disciples to get out, and sometimes, because of our ego, abhiman, ahankar, we think we will not do service any more, we will leave, but actually Gurudev wants to see, "How many percent faith does he or she have for me? How many percent love and affection does he or she have for me? I want to see whether they leave me and my service if I tell them to get out." Gurudev tests us. The rest of this test depends on what is called surrender—it depends on how much you can surrender.

I have told many times how Sanatan Goswami once also did wrong. After he had surrendered to Mahaprabhu, he wanted to commit suicide—he wanted to leave his body. Mahaprabhu chastised him a little for this and then he understood, "What I wanted to do is wrong, it is not surrender. I wanted to destroy my body committing suicide, but this body is for His service and I was following my mind!" This pastime of Sanatan Goswami is an example and a lesson for us.

When Mahaprabhu chastised devotees, for example when He chastised Chhota Haridas, it was not for him—it was for the next generation of devotees, to show them what should be the character of a devotee like.

In old days, the Oriya rice was not very good, so Chhota Haridas once brought Mahaprabhu some good rice from Madhavi Devi (she had collected it from Bengal), but Mahaprabhu chastised him so much. After that, Chhota Haridas gave up his life—he committed suicide. When it happened, Mahaprabhu showed us a lesson, "Chhota Haridas has committed suicide, but despite that he is still continuing to serve Me—even after his death he is still doing service."

If we read Chaitanya-charitamrita, we can understand what is anugatya through many of the pastimes of Mahaprabhu...

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