Guru's Greed, Disciple's Greed

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Vyasa Puja of Srila B.S. Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
Sri Nrisingha Palli, morning programme
1 January 2021, part 6, translated from Bengali

There is one more thing written in one of the Puranas. I often tell you about it in Bengali, but this is the actual sloka from the scriptures:

গুরবো বহবঃ সন্তি শিষ্যবিত্তাপহারকাঃ ।
দুর্লভঃ সদ্­গুরুর্দেবি শিষ্যসন্তাপহারাকঃ ॥

gurabo vahavah santi sisya-vittapaharakah
durlabhah sad-gurur-devi sisya-santapa-harakah

‘O Devi! There are many gurus who steal their disciple’s wealth, but it is very rare to find a guru who would steal the disciple’s three-fold miseries.’

(Purana)

In this world, there are many gurus who steal their disciples’ wealth. Many such gurus give initiation, leave and then come once a year to extract their tax from you. If you own some land, you have to pay tax to the municipality – in the same way, there are many gurus in this world who will come to you with a box and say, ‘Put one–two rupees here for me every day.’ Genuine gurus will never impose any ‘tax’ on you – a genuine guru will always think how to ‘steal’ your miseries (how to remove your three-fold miseries), he will never say, ‘I will come every month, and you must give me a sack of rice and some money.’ On the other hand, the disciples of bogus gurus also think, ‘I have got initiation, so I have got everything. My guru will come once a month, I will wash his feet, cook for him whatever he wants, etc., and the rest of the time I can do whatever I want.’ Such gurus say, ‘Eat whatever your soul wants’, but the soul wants to serve Paramatma (the Supersoul)! The soul never wants you to eat any fish, meat or anything like that – this is what your mind and tongue want! I have told you about the six urges – such desires come from these urges. The soul never wants to eat fish, meat, this, that. The soul only always wants to serve Paramatma, the Lord. When you go to the market, you get some nice smell of fish, and even if you have no money, your mind will think, ‘Oh, if I had money, I would buy this fish!’ These are the desires of your tongue and mind! The souls never wants all this, but we are so greedy that we think that our mind and our soul are one and the same. People do not understand what is the mind and what is the soul. The soul exists on the internal plane (it judges about internal, spiritual matters), and the mind exists on the external plane (it judges about the external, illusory matters).

Some say, ‘I have already taken initiation from a guru, and if I now take initiation here, my previous guru will curse me.’ A genuine guru never curses anyone. Demigods’ guru can curse you (such as when one time, Brihaspati, the guru of demigods, cursed Indra), but a genuine spiritual guru will never curse you no matter how much wrong you do – he forgives all good and bad qualities, this is his duty. There are many gurus who will say, ‘Oh, you have given me up, so I will curse you!’ They come to you every year and get a sack of rice and fifty rupees, so if you leave them, they will lose their income, or salary – that is why they will threaten to curse you, and when you back off, they will say, ‘All right, you can give me two sacks of rice, then I will not curse you – everything will be all right.’ This is what happens; it is the truth.

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