(11) Seek Genuine Guru

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur's
appearance day, Hooghly district
24 February 2019, morning, part 11
Translated from Bengali

There are many gurus roaming this world: karmi-gurus (who teach how to attain material gain), jnani-gurus (who teach material knowledge), yogi-gurus (who teach some mystic powers). Sivji Maharaj told Parvati Devi, 'O Devi! The gurus in this world are mostly after people's material wealth; there are very few gurus who are interested in relieving people of their misery.'

Suppose you come to a doctor and he diagnoses you with diabetes. If the doctor is good, he will say, 'I am prescribing you this medication, you must take it regularly, and do not eat potato or anything sweet.' Suppose you are rich and attached to eating sweets. You will say, 'Sir, prescribe me the medication, I will take it, but I cannot live without eating ten sweets a day!' If the doctor is good and loves you, he will say, 'I do not want to treat a patient like you. Do not come to me again. If you stop eating sweets, then come to see me again; otherwise, you will continue eating sweets and keep coming to me and paying me every month – what is the use? You will never get well like this.' But then there are also doctors who love money...

I have heard a story about a patient who died in a nursing home. The doctors did not report his death for three days to continue charging money for the patient's stay at the home. When the family came to see the patient, they said, 'Oh, he is sleeping', then they said, 'Oh, he is on lung ventilation support', 'Oh, he is in the ICU.' Three days later, they told the family that he had died. They charged them 600,000 rupees, and to pay the bill, the family had to sell their land and house. There are such doctors in this world who are only happy to see their patients die. Some doctors take bribes and keep people in nursing homes only to increase their income...

So, if the doctor is bad, he will think, 'If I insist that he must not eat sweets, he will just go to another doctor, and that other doctor will get my money. Better I tell him to eat whatever he wants. He will come to me every month, and if he dies, what loss is it to me? At least I will get my five-hundred-rupee fee every month.'

There are also such gurus in this world. They will say, 'Just take initiation and do whatever you want!' If I were to tell everybody, 'You can eat fish, meat, onions, garlic, do whatever you want, drink, smoke, take drugs,' you will all come and take initiation – there would be a huge queue and I would give everybody beads one by one. But if I tell you, 'Do not gamble (do not play cards, dice or buy lottery); do not take any intoxicants (alcohol, cigarettes, drugs or tea); do not mix with women; do not kill living entities (do not eat fish, meat, garlic, onion or masoori dal),' then you will say, 'I am out of here!' I know all this.

If you want to get something great, you must sacrifice small things. We cannot cheat people. You think that you will come, give me fifty rupees and take initiation – we do not sell initiations. If you take initiation from such a guru, you will go to hell yourselves and take the guru with you. That is why it is said that there are many such gurus roaming this world, but there are very few genuine spiritual gurus.

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