The Teachings of Pure Devotion
Compiled here is an ongoing series of quotations from our Acharyas:
“The chatak bird will not be satisfied with water found anywhere on this earth. But only a few drops of water from the blue cloud in the sky will satisfy him. There is so much water in the pond, the river, the ocean—he won’t take one drop of it. That is the nature of the chatak. The blue cloud may punish him with a thunderbolt, but he never stops singing the glories of the cloud. This is chastity, this is surrender.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“Go to Krishna, Mahaprabhu, ‘Please accept me, my Lord. What is this, that formerly I had devoted myself to You, and now these evil agents are coming and disturbing me? You do not take care of taking possession of Your own property? I am Your property. If anything is wrong within my documents, please correct it and accept me.’ It is so hearty a transaction.”
Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“Diksa, initiation, means we offer ourselves to Krishna. And that is called dedication: ‘I want to throw myself in the plane of dedication.’ And in that throwing nothing will be lost. If I throw one apple from here to there, the apple will get some loss from the hitting. But throwing to the lotus feet of Krishna it is getting much energy and life; just the opposite. That is the divine plane.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“I heard an English expression from Guru Maharaj: ‘To err is human, but to forgive is divine.’ We will always try to live in the divine plane. Why will we go to the plane of error? The plane of error means the plane of exploitation. We will leave that plane and transform that plane to the divine plane. And it is possible; Bhaktivinod Thakur said it in his song: ye dina grihe bhajana dekhi grihete Goloka bhaya. … We want to stay in that plane, our real plane: the plane of dedication, divine dedication.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“I told Srila Guru Maharaj, ‘Maharaj, I am your goat, your sacrificial goat. If you want to cut my tail, or if you want to cut my throat, that is your will. I am ready. When you are telling me this, what shall I do? I am ready for the sacrifice.’”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“Your abode will be very near to Him according to your degree and intensity of sacrificing attitude. This is the close approach. By sacrifice we live. By enjoying we lose. By serving we thrive and by enjoying we lose.”
Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“Real compassion is to draw the conditioned souls away from their perverse attachment with the material nature. If even one soul can be rescued from the fortress of Mahamaya, then this is infinitely more compassionate than constructing countless hospitals.”
Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur
“Tad eva sankirtanam means: when a group of devotees gather together for kirtan, what comes from their melted hearts, that is sankirtan. Sankirtan is congregational chanting with the mood of tolerance, humility, and giving honour to others.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“Whatever I appreciated forty years ago, the same principle is going on. There is no change. What I understood from my spiritual master, I am always doing that.”
Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj Prabhupad
“… those who desire material results from fruitive activity consider this month [Purusottam month] to be barren, to be materially unhealthy. Such persons dismiss this month, therefore this extra month feels it is rejected so it feels the necessity to surrender to its Master. The Lord always gives much protection to the surrendered, so He gives all His own wealth and property to this month and in this way it takes on His properties and becomes like Him. Therefore the Lord gave His own Name, Purusottam, making this extra month the king of all months.”
Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“… prema-latikara mula. That means if we can satisfy the devotee, Krishna will be merciful to me and Krishna will bestow His mercy upon my head; and I will get the affectionate service of Krishna, and also service mood of Krishna more exclusively, and that is Krishna-prema.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“ ‘I have taken bath in Radha Kund’; ‘I took a dip in Radha Kund’; ‘I am a lump of flesh and blood’; ‘I am my wife’s maintainer’; ‘I am a sannyasi’; ‘I am a brahman, ksatriya, vaishya, or shudra’: thinking in any of these ways does not give the qualification to bathe in Radha Kund. What to speak of such materialistic conceptions, if we are filled with the conception of awe and reverence, we cannot bathe in Radha Kund.”
Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur
“Our only identification is that we are the servitors of the servitors of the servitors of the servitors of Sri Krishna. And what kind of Krishna? Gopi bhartuh pada kamalayor dasa dasanudasah.
“Not Kuruksetra Krishna and not Dwaraka Krishna, but He who is protecting the cows, He who is Lord of the gopis, He who is playing in Vrindavan and on Govardhan Hill—that type of Krishna, cowherd boy Krishna: we are to be the servant of the servant of Him. To be such a servant is our main line and goal of life.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“… amanina manadena: the life of service is the eternal property of the exalted jiva-soul, or the liberated soul, and that is also the property of everyone—so you must respect everyone, without expecting respect in return.
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“… it is a question of life and death for me. Always, I play with life and death in Chaitanya Saraswat Math. And lastly I may die but I cannot leave. This is my religion.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“Enthusiasm is the life of faith. Without enthusiasm, faith does not act at all. Many people think that they have faith in the Lord, but because they do not have enthusiasm, their faith does not act. Thus, because of a lack of sadhu-sanga, they do not engage in the Lord’s service.”
Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur
“If one has higher sukriti, shuddha-bhakti, the seed of prema-bhakti, then he won’t be able to think of anything but Krishna’s pleasure. He’ll think only of the pleasure of his Lord, cent per cent, forgetting his own body, mind—everything.”
Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“Through surrender and devotion to Krishna everything will come to you. The Lord’s divine form and the prapanna-jivanamritam, the nectar of a life of surrendered service, will appear in your heart.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“Shatapatra vedhah nyaya, a needle can pierce through one hundred leaves within a second. The Names of Nitāi and Chaitanya have the power to rescue us so quickly that the time it takes for us to be actually rescued is not countable.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“A ship without a rudder drifts aimlessly in the ocean. But if I have taken to heart the particular ideal of Krishna, Mahaprabhu, and Bhagavatam, then I am captured. My tuft of hair (shikha) is tied to the feet of my Guru Maharaj.”
Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“We cannot obtain happiness in this world by our own persistent endeavours because we have rejected happiness Himself, ecstasy Himself, the embodiment of all rasas, Sri Krishna.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“So die to live—dive deep into reality—jnana‑sunya-bhakti. The area of surrender is so high, noble, great, and fulfilling. That can come. That can only take us in the plane of love and affection. If we hope to see and to live in that plane of affection and love, not this mundane affection and love, but the love of the Absolute, then we must accept complete surrender at His disposal, at His mercy. The reaction comes as love.”
Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“When we are forming a society or anything, that is only as eyewash to satisfy the mundane requirements. But what is the value of a nose without breath? Our life-force is the mood of devotion to Krishna, and that will increase with the association of, and service to, the devotee.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“What we read in the local interest, we will not find if we go to read from the universal interest. Our disease of local interest and conception will be cured and removed when we see that everything is meant for Krishna and we become one with that interest.”
Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“What is our aim? We want the service of the Lord: ‘Die to live’. We want a life of purity which is full of self-giving; we want a generous life. We want to live the life of those who want not to extract, but to give.”
Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“All will be satisfied if you put the water under the root of the tree, and Krishna is that root and we are doing that. But we have nothing; then what we shall offer, we do not know. That is our feelings.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“… Prahlad’s deeper vision saw reality correctly. He saw that Krishna is everywhere. And Krishna consciousness is commanding the whole. So we must not allow ourselves to be discouraged under any circumstances, however acute they may apparently seem to us. … If only we can develop the right vision, the smiling face of the Lord will appear from behind the screen.”
Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“We gather knowledge with our senses in this plane, but transcendental knowledge appears in the heart, through transmission from one who is fully conscious in the divine plane.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“We can play with the Lord through our love. If my Lord will play football with me, what sweet feelings will come to me, how sweetly they will come.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“If we will realise what we have received from our Gurudev, pure consciousness about Sri Krishna, then in everything—every song, every advice, every thought, every shloka—we will feel, ‘My own existence is present there.’”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“If someone will follow his guru’s instructions in a surrendered mood, it will be bhakti, otherwise it will be pious karma.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“We are not desirous of becoming a hero of work or a reformer of religion, but our reality may be identified with the dust of the lotus feet of Sri Rupa and Raghunath for that is our everything.”
Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur
“Everything can produce spiritual property—shabda, sparsha, rupa, rasa, gandha: experience by sound, touch, sight, taste, and smell—all can give us good results if we adjust them in the proper way for our spiritual benefit.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“He is so near that we cannot conceive how near. He is so close to us that we cannot conceive of it clearly—even my own self is not so near to me as He is. I cannot see myself as much as He can see me. I cannot love myself as much as He loves me. He has so much love for me; I can’t love myself that much. Such is our relationship with the Lord.”
Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“…sometimes we must fall down but there should be no fear of that because we must have the strength of mind to know that we have the backing from our Guru and the Vaishnavs. Seeing their merciful world we must take the chance again and again; that is the main thing and there is no other way.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“Tad dasa-dasa-dasanam dasatvam dehi me Prabho. My faith may be so firm and may be of such quality that the least offer of His service, of divine service, may satisfy me. I may not be ambitious to run high, to get the chance there in the higher officer class. With my lowest connection with the divinity I may go on satisfied with my life.”
Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“Our duty here must have its origin in the plane of bhakti; we must be able to read and catch and utilise that flow. We must dance in the waves of that flow. Everyone’s highest duty will be full submission to the unseen, undetectable causal power, which has no cause, no rhyme, no reason.”
Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“Sometimes it is touching, sometimes it is disappearing within us. But we are not frustrated or anything; we are sure about our religious position. Mukunda Datta heard that Mahaprabhu said, ‘After one million years you will have My darshan’, and Mukunda Datta was dancing.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“If we examine ourselves, we will read and cry: ‘What have I done? What is my necessity? And how am I passing my days? I must repent, cry. I have passed my days uselessly, I am a traitor to my own self, I am committing suicide. My real complaint is against myself and my so‑called friends. We have nothing to do here.’ So, read and cry; do or die! Progress in the right way, or you are inviting your death.”
Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“So many pandits can understand the Sanskrit language but from within the Sanskrit, everyone cannot extract the gist of ecstasy. This is a fact. … Without the grace of Nityananda Prabhu, without the grace of Baladev, you cannot understand anything.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“… the Lord and His paraphernalia are not vindictive. Yet the punishment comes—to correct you. They are fully aware of your defects and your real interest. They are all-affectionate. You are responsible. In this process, in time you will be purified to the highest degree. So, don’t go to quarrel with the environment.”
Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“First we must become established in the plane of dedication, then we will have, gradually, the chance of service to Krishna. It will come gradually—it may come sooner or it may take many births—but when it will come, it will come gradually. The main thing is service; but we cannot serve properly, therefore it is necessary to practise in order to prepare ourselves to engage in real service.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“The Supreme Lord is existing everywhere. If we are engaged in serving one part of Him, then our concept of Krishna-seva will be wiped out and it will become the worship of Garbhodakashayi Vishnu. … If one is not versatile in his service, then one will become eccentric, and he will become averse to the mood of Srimati Radharani’s service, which is all-inclusive.”
—Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur
“Such things are inconceivable and not believable, but still we are on that errand. We can’t leave it; those that have got a little tinge of this, they can’t leave it. … ‘I shall try to save myself from this position and march towards some ‘abstract world’ as you may say. The abstract is concrete; abstract is concrete, and your concrete is going to vanish.’”
Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“The Gaudiya Math deals with reality, not with the frame. We are trying to understand what is what in the spiritual thought‑world. We are not enchanted or captured by the mere form. We are interested in the step-by-step development in spiritual thought.”
Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“If you want that ecstasy you can try to worship that plane. Then you will get it by the mercy of the real associates of Krishna. And that is the main thing. But there’s no need to be hopeless; much hope is here, especially in this kali-yuga. Mahaprabhu said Harer Nama Harer Nama Harer Namaiva kevalam—chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra without offence and you will get everything.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“We can do many auspicious services to the Lord but that is not the cause of the real hankering necessary for service to Vrindavan Dham. We need to have the association of the associates of Vraja Dham, hear the lila of Krishna, and engage in sravanam, kirtanam, Vishnoh-smaranam, pada-sevanam, etc.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“There is only this one main qualification: who is a hundred percent surrendered to his Guru, he can become Guru. The other qualifications are minor, such as the sixty-four kinds of activities of practising life, etc.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“In this mundane world the worst thing is paramour love, but in the transcendental world where everything is superior and is for service, the topmost position is that of paramour love. By this we can begin to understand just what a great difference there is between the mundane and spiritual worlds.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“In front of us are many things that draw us away from service, but we have received a very good guru. Now the ball is in our own court. We have everything in that we have the seed of Krishna-prem through Srila Swami Maharaj and Srila Guru Maharaj. Just to receive the seed is a very fortunate thing, and really we have that: there is no haziness there—it is brighter than sunlight. Therefore, with full consciousness we shall try to gain transcendental knowledge. That seed is in our hand and we shall try to nurture it properly.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“This mundane world is the very distrustful area of maya. The demoniac asura mentality has always given trouble to the devotees ever since the beginning of the conscious world, but the devotees are taking everything in the light of Krishna consciousness. They see that all is coming by the will of Krishna, and so behind everything is their spiritual benefit.
“Bilvamangal was blind, but Krishna was playing with him by slapping his hand. Whenever Bilvamangal tried to catch Him, Krishna hid Himself. Bilvamangal then told Krishna, ‘You can hide from me in this way but You will have to be very powerful if You can leave from my heart.’ So when we can know that everything is within Krishna consciousness then we have no problem.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“If we can understand what was so dear to Srila Guru Maharaj, especially his Deities, Math, devotees and paraphernalia, then it is not possible to think that suddenly these things are no longer dear to him and so give them all up so easily. In this way we are all trying to serve Srila Guru Maharaj’s desires here for his Mission.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“Always we must carefully guard our faith. Faith is the foundation of our devotional life and if it becomes injured or shaky then the whole of our devotion is in a shaky position. Village talks can damage our faith and Mahaprabhu instructed this to such an exalted person as Srila Raghunath Das Goswami. So we can understand the importance of this message for such as ourselves.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“Guru Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur, preached exclusively this madhura-rasa, but with great precaution. What is not that thing, he used perhaps 90% of his energy to point out the negative side—‘This is not madhura-rasa’—and clear away the negative side. He had to spare, in his words, ‘gallons of blood’ to establish what is not that madhura-rasa.”
Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“If we need bhakti-yoga to Krishna, and if we do not want to stay within the illusory environment, and if we feel the necessity to go to the transcendental world—our own home—then with full heart we must try to achieve that. We shall try to search out that place where it is available and wholeheartedly try to follow the instructions we receive there.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“I am living, what for? Eating, thinking, etc. Every second should be engaged in enquiring after my lord, losing whose company I am suffering so much. Knowingly or unknowingly we are searching for the perfect thing, but we are misguided; that is maya.”
Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“If we wish to associate ourselves with the Absolute, all non-absolute propaganda for our temporary purposes should be abandoned as far as possible, otherwise we will be led to become materialists only.”
Bhagavan Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur
“The highest magnanimity must take notice of the lowest and most needy. And if He (Mahaprabhu) wants to help them, He will do so with His own coin. He cannot distribute to them only glass or stone chips.”
Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“The dham allows us to see it, according to the degree of our devotion. A doctor sees a patient according to his capacity. Higher intelligence can see deeper. … There is revelation according to one’s capacity. Deserve—and have.”
Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“The life of a devotee has no individual or provincial interest. He works only for the universal interest of the Whole Absolute. Devotees are soldiers of that plane. Whatever they may do, the suggestion and inspiration comes from the centre, the Absolute Good.”
Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“But what is the value of a nose without breath? Our life-force is the mood of devotion to Krishna, and that will increase with the association of, and service to, the devotee.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“Knowledge is power, but love is more powerful, and any price should be paid for that. All treasures can be sacrificed for attaining that blissful and sublime love with which to enter that world of highest divinity.”
Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“Service to the Guru and Vaishnav is our life, and we must try to perform that service. No doubt we cannot always satisfy Guru and Vaishnav, but the main thing is to have the tendency and inner desire to satisfy them. Transcendental power comes down through that channel, and if we want it, we must try in this way.”
Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“What is meant by dedication? Dedication in its highest stage is union in separation. Ostentatiously I may be driven away from that but in heart, my faithfulness is increasing in degree. If I am punished, still I adhere to that. It means the connection, the link, has become very invulnerable. ”
—Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“Guru Maharaj always directed his devotees to engage themselves twenty-four hours daily in the service of the Lord. In this way you can ignore the mundane world and you must reach your destination.”
—Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“The transcendental mediator or Sri Gurudev is a loving agent of the All-love, and so will be kind to us who are seeking for a tie of love with the All-love. This embodiment of love will gradually lead our loving mood to that one who is the fountainhead and mainstay of all aspects of eternal Love. This messenger is the pioneer leader of love, the courier of the All-love, the establisher of all relations of divine love, and the regulator and modifier of all our non-loving principles.”
Bhagavan Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur
“Pujala raga-patha gaurava-bhange. The whole tenor of his (Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur’s) life was such: ‘That is high, high. And from below we are to honour that.’ We are to establish in the whole world this sort of posing: the proper regard of that higher lila: ‘That is too high.’”
—Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“Here the question has come to me: we may be of different groups, we may be of different type, of different mentality, but we must consider that when service comes to us, then we will be together for the service to my Guru Maharaj.”
—Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“So we have to become good and have a cottage in that good soil where none deceives his neighbour but rather always makes himself empty, to give everything to his neighbour, in that kingdom of Krishna.”
—Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“We are not searching for our liberation, we are searching for our spiritual life. What is clean from karma and jnan. Anukulyena Krishnanushilanam bhaktir uttama. We want to worship our Lord with love and affection.”
—Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“We pray, ‘O Nityananda Prabhu, O Gurudev, please give me a drop of firm faith in Sri Gauranga, who is Radha-Govinda combined, tasting the sweetness of the divine nectar of the Pastimes of Vrindavan. Give me a drop of faith, so that one day I may attain divine love and enter into that domain.’”
—Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“We must place our faith in these subtle things. Only through faith of a finer order can we be led to that highest quarter. The highest conception is in the heart of Krishna, and we have to enter into the heart of Krishna, not any other place.”
—Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“Vaishnavi pratishtha tate koro nishtha. Srila Saraswati Thakur has written in his poem ‘Who is a Vaishnav?’: ‘When your ego will grow to embrace the ideal that you are the servitor of a Vaishnav, you try and hold that within your heart.’ ”
—Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“Our greatest enemy is fame, therefore Srila Saraswati Thakur said it was comparable with pig’s stool. Perhaps for the time being they can’t leave the habit, but why should my friends eat that pig stool twenty-four hours daily?”
—Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“Sri Krishna, who is the vishaya-vigraha, the object of the devotees’ love, is the sole enjoyer and all others are to be enjoyed by Him.”
—Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur
“To have faith that this process of Krishna consciousness will purify us is the minimum demand. One must think, ‘If I attain this, everything will be done.’ If such a sort of generous, wide conviction is there along with a sincere mood of cooperation, then that can help us very quickly.”
—Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“We shall try to live in the plane of devotion, the plane of dedication. That is our goal. If we can do fully, we shall be benefitted fully; and if we can do partly we shall be benefitted partly. But we are not to lose our vision. Our vision will always be to that ideal level.”
—Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“At the lotus feet of Sri Guru there is no search for the defects of other people. Yet there is no other function of submission at the lotus feet of Sri Guru than to be constantly made aware of my hundreds of thousands of defects and to be cautioned constantly against any evil that is likely to befall me. May we not be deprived of the ideal of sitting at the lotus feet of Sri Guru.”
—Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur
“The concrete reality is beyond the experience of our senses. So then, what is that thing? Because we are in such a low position, we can gradually go there to the inner world only with the help of our guru.”
—Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“We are not yogis, jnanis, tapasvis, etc. but we are active devotees aspiring after the pure ideal of our Srila Guru Maharaj.”
—Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“Those ignorant persons who do not perform Hari-bhajan are murderers of their own souls.”
—Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur
“The eye to detect our disqualification is our real wealth. And we are given the eye to see by the grace of our Gurudev.”
—Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“With the proper transcendental vision we can always and everywhere receive enthusiasm to do the seva of our Divine Master.”
—Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“If we desire an auspicious life then we should never listen to the opinions of the countless people of this world, but rather we should attend only the instructions from the transcendental plane.”
—Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur
“For one who has a heart, the hearty transaction is most natural. And that is service.”
—Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“Everyone needs some position–everywhere we see it. But it is necessary to know what is our actual position, otherwise we cannot understand Krishna consciousness.”
—Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“It is better to be born as an animal, bird, insect, or any other species than to take shelter of deceit. Only honesty can give a person real auspiciousness.”
—Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur
“Service will acquire prema, and prema will induce us to serve. That is our object of life.”
—Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“The only service to the jīvas which is actually good is if we can engage them in the service of Guru-Vaiṣṇava; otherwise serving them will be the cause of not only their bondage but also my own bondage—loko ’yaṁ karma-bandhanaḥ.”
—Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“The true vision of Kṛṣṇa is only attainable through the ears, by hearing Hari-kathā from the pure Vaiṣṇav. There is no other way.”
—Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur
“Throw yourself into the fire and you will come out with a bright self. Learn to die as you are: that mental concocted body, that concoted energy. Take the Name of the Lord and die. Bhakati-Vinoda āja āpane bhulila. Forget yourself as you are at present and you will find your proper self there that does not die.”
—Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“With the association of the devotees we can progress in our spiritual lives very quickly. A real devotee can give us everything. With his association we shall get many things and a ‘living life’. Life is not dead matter, but living life is necessary.”
—Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“The fire lit by our Guru Maharaj must be allowed to burn. We must not keep a feeble fire. The ideal that Gurudev has given is very rarely found in this world. Out of thousands and millions of chances, we may have such a seed sown.”
—Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“We are practising Krishna consciousness, or we came to practise Krishna consciousness, not for any mundane benefit. Where we shall see the real light of Krishna consciousness we must really pay obeisances there.”
—Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“This is our necessity: Vaishnav-seva and Guru-seva—service to the Vaishnav and Guru. By Guru-bhakti alone—devotion to the service of Sri Gurudev—in one stroke, all desirable pursuits will be accomplished.”
—Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“Why must I live? Because I must do my master’s seva, his service; otherwise I do not want to live. What is Vaishnavism? A Vaishnav is always worshipping his Lord twenty-four hours a day. Worshipping means serving the Lord. That is Vaishnavism.”
—Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
“The real existence of Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur is in bhakti-siddhanta-vani, his divine teachings. May that bhakti-siddhanta-vani dance eternally within the core of your heart.”
—Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj