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.