Honoring Prabhupada’s Relationship With Us

Each of Srila Prabhupada’s disciples has chosen to love him.  It is a commitment that I will always honor, and I have sealed that commitment at my initiation.  We have a contract of love now.  Although my love for Srila Prabhupada may not yet be free of any material tinge, he is patient.  And Prabhupada himself has placed conditions of his love on his disciples.  He expects them to follow him.  Although he will still love a disobedient disciple, his love will not reach a disciple who rebels or disobeys his order, and who blasphemes guru and Krishna.  The relationship between guru and disciple is meant to be based on honor.

I have heard people say that this “condition” Prabhupada places on his love for us is not much different than the conditions some of our parents placed on us to win their love.  Many people have been hurt by parents who sold their love for high grades in school, or conformity to family rules, etc.  There was no chance for people who grew up in these families to develop themselves as individuals, or to feel self-worth despite their failings to meet their parents’ standards.  They grew up only with conditions and have no experience of real love.  Is Prabhupada’s love for us like that?  Is it a lesser kind of love because he places on it the condition of our obedience?

No, Prabhupada will accept a fallen disciple.  He does not reject anyone who fails to follow his standards.  What he expects of his disciples is that we maintain our honor.  We have to try, and we have to be faithful to him, even if we do not always succeed.  He wants at least that much reciprocation for the great gift he is giving us.  Neither is his motivation for setting these standards based on false ego, as our parents’ motivations were.  Following the spiritual master is best for us.  We have to follow the spiritual master in order to learn to love Krishna.  And this is the gift he so much wants to share with us, but he knows we have to be qualified first.  Prabhupada’s conditions are not the same as so many mundane performance requirements.  They are purely spiritual.  Neither does he distinguish between race or sex or religion; he doesn’t ask for money.  And although he loves all living entities (he is mahatma, great-hearted), he feels a special obligation to guide and nurture those who surrender and seek shelter from him as his disciples.  It is the case of “if you love me, then I will love you.”

The pure devotee loves us in a much greater proportion than we can love him.  We are simply beggars.  All he is asking in return for his gift of Krishna consciousness is our sincerity.