During
translation, I have often felt an urge to record my own thoughts on the matter
being translated. These thoughts, incorporated as footnotes, have emerged out
of my own acquaintance with the subject but these cannot claim to be anything
more than mere notes of the translator. Further, some of these observations may
be tentative in nature and also inaccurate.
Monday, February 9, 2015
Sunday, February 8, 2015
The Supreme Importance of Serving the Feet of the Guru
In this chapter, the supreme importance of
serving the feet of the Guru giving the instruction (upadesa) of devotion to Hari is demonstrated.
The embodied transcendental personality (jiva) is, in reality, a joyful denizen of the
spiritual domain, who, as a consequence of his original neglect of the service
(seva) of the Lord, has been deluded by the
God-obscuring-dross-revealing entity known as maya,
and who has now fallen into nescience (avidya).
The jiva is suffering the afflictions (klesa-s) of samsara by
which term we mean the material world from the ignorant perspective.
But the Lord, being utterly compassionate (krpamaya),
is keen on rescuing the jiva from his
fallen state. This redemptive mission is accomplished by Him through the agency
of the Guru whose function it is to re-acquaint the jiva with the Lord and remind him of his eternal duty of service to
the Lord—the neglect of which has led him to his present nescient state in the
first place.
The Guru’s instruction or upadesa to the disciple jiva, therefore, represents the culmination of the redemptive role of the Lord which, as
stated already, is primarily educative in character.
However, before this instruction is obtained,
the jiva must first approach the Guru
and serve him respectfully. In this manner, thus, service to the Guru becomes
the sine qua non of obtaining the
knowledge of devotion to Hari—God Who is the Savior of the Fallen—which
alone will enable the jiva to return
to his original joyful position.
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