What is the importance of guru in Bhakti?

 We are born in the darkness of ignorance so we rely on others to teach us most of the important things we learn.

Bhakti is especially difficult to learn on our own because it involves pleasing another person - Krishna.

Without knowing what pleases Krishna and what doesn’t we are left guessing, which is less than ideal because Krishna is not an ordinary person.

If we are interested in something difficult and we see someone doing it expertly, it’s natural to ask them to teach us. That’s for ordinary things but it holds true for Bhakti also.

There is another element that is even more important. Humility is an essential aspect of Bhakti. A devotee will feel very fallen and unqualified to approach even the tip of Krishna’s lotus toes. But he will have great confidence that his guru can purify whatever he wants to offer to Krishna so that it’s accepted by Krishna. So whatever he does for Krishna he offers through his guru. His guru will offer it to his guru and in this way the offering ascends through the guru parampara to Krishna. Similarly Krishna will speak to his devotees through their guru. Because the guru is the transparent via media to Krishna, the experience is direct. Srila Prabhupada explains it as follows: “This means that one has to understand Krishna not directly but through the medium of the spiritual master. The spiritual master is the transparent medium, although it is true that the experience is still direct. This is the mystery of the disciplic succession.”

A very simple but nice example is that of wearing glasses. Because of defective vision a person needs glasses because they can’t see clearly without them. The glasses are transparent and don’t change what the person is looking at, but without them they can’t see it clearly. So he is completely dependent on his glasses for clear vision. Because our vision is defective it makes life much easier if we see through the eyes of guru.

In Chaitanya Charitamrita Madhya lila chapter 22 Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu instructs Sanatan Goswami on the process of devotional service.

”I shall say something about the various practices of devotional service, which is expanded in so many ways. I wish to speak briefly of the essential practices. Madhya 22.115

”On the path of regulative devotional service, one must observe the following items:

(1) One must accept a bona fide spiritual master.

(2) One must accept initiation from him.

(3) One must serve him.

(4) One must receive instructions from the spiritual master and make inquiries in order to learn devotional service.

(5) One must follow in the footsteps of the previous acaryas and follow the directions given by the spiritual master. Madhya 22.116

It is recognized that there are sixty-four important items of devotional service, but these are the first five that Mahaprabhu mentions.

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