Core Qualities of Disciple

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
19 July 2013

Question: What are the qualities of a pure disciple?

A pure disciple is a real disciple. Disciple has to be always surrendered, this is first of all, and the second main quality is faith—it is necessary to have both surrender and strongest faith.

If I fully surrender to my Guru, then faith will come automatically, and slowly, slowly everything will come if you practise, if you follow your Guru's order, your Guru's instruction. Follow means do or die. Gurudev gave an example. Suppose you are walking with your Guru down a road, and suddenly you see a snake,

"Gurudev, there is a snake! A snake! Be careful!"

But the Guru says, "It is not a snake, it is a rope."

You must believe what your Guru says.

There is also an example of Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur. He was once walking from Chaitanya Math in Yogapith, Mayapur, to the ghat. At that time, there were no temples on both side of the road, there was only a jungle, forest, and people would pass stool on both sides of the road. Passing these places, one of Srila Prabhupad's disciples could not tolerate the smell of the stool and closed his nose. Prabhupad asked him,

"What is happening? What smell are you getting?

"Prabhupad, there is so much stool on the road..."

"What stool? I am not getting any smell of the stool? I am getting the smell of incense."

How is it possible? Prabhupad explained, "Yes, I can see on both sides of the road there are so many temples, but you cannot see them. Mahaprabhu's worship is going on on both sides of the road, but you cannot it now. Later you will see."

And it happened.

So, you must believe, you must have strongest faith. Faith and surrender are the main qualities. The problem is that we cannot surrender fully. We only say it with our mouth, but actually we are not fully surrendered souls. When a soul (jiva atma) is surrendered (saranagata), then if some offence comes through their service, Guru and Krishna do not take their offence. Through offence, heart becomes dirty, but if a surrendered soul makes an offence, then Krishna does not take their offence. So, mainly, surrender is necessary.

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