(6/7) 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, and this is the actual sloka from the scriptures:

গুরবো বহবঃ সন্তি শিষ্যবিত্তাপহারকাঃ ।
দুর্লভঃ সদ্­গুরুর্দেবি শিষ্যসন্তাপহারাকঃ ॥

gurabo vahavah santi sisya-vittapa-harakah
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 threefold miseries.’

(Purana)

In this world, there are many gurus who steal their disciples’ wealth. Many such gurus will give you initiations, go away and then come back once a year to extract their tax from you. For example, 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 here one–two rupees for me every day.’ A genuine guru will never impose any ‘tax’ on you – a genuine guru will always think how to ‘steal’ your miseries (how to remove your threefold 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 and do for him whatever he wants, and I can do whatever I want the rest of the time.’ The gurus who do this 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 minds and tongues want! I have told you about the six urges earlier today – all desires come from these urges; but the soul never wants to eat fish, meat, this or 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!’ Such desires are the desires of your tongues and minds! The soul never wants all this, but the problem is that in our country people think that the mind and the soul are one and the same, and even so-called gurus do not understand what is the mind and what is the soul. The soul’s plane of existence lies in the internal world, and the mind’s plane of existence lies in the external world.

Some people are afraid, ‘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 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 say this because 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 – that is why they 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 is actually happening; it is the truth.

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Length: 40 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Gurudev's Appearance
2) Gurudev's Coming to Temple
3) Perfect Adherence
4) Who Is Guru?
5) Sri Guru Tattva
6) Guru's Greed, Disciple's Greed
7) Deceivers and Deceived