BTG Article by Suresvara dasa
A Philosophical Seed
Around 1552, seven years after the Sabha’s founding, Srila Rupa Goswami finished his landmark work Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu (“The Ocean of the Pure Nectar of Devotional Service”). In his commentary to the Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Adi-lila, Chapter 5, text 203, Prabhupada writes: “Srila Rupa Goswami is described as the bhakti-rasacharya, or one who knows the essence of devotional service. His famous book Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu is the science of devotional service, and by reading this book one can understand the meaning of devotional service.”
So essential for devotees did Prabhupada consider Sri Rupa’s masterwork that, for more than six months in 1969, he suspended his Bhagavatam writing to produce a summary study of Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu he called The Nectar of Devotion. In his Introduction Prabhupada writes that “in our mental activities we should always try to think of Krishna and try to plan how to please Him, following in the footsteps of the great acharyas and the personal spiritual master.”
Later in the book Prabhupada repeats the distinction between “the great acharyas and the personal spiritual master” by the way he translates Sri Rupa’s phrase sadhu-vartmanu-varttanam:5 “following in the footsteps of great acharyas (teachers) under the direction of the spiritual master.”6
In Part One of this series we learned that initiating and instructing spiritual masters are like parents and relatives respectively. As a child may at first see his parents and relatives as everything, then matures to see them in perspective, so a disciple may initially see his spiritual parents and relatives as everything, then matures to appreciate them in relation to “the great acharyas.”
To help us understand this philosophical seed of the founder-acharya principle, we will now hear how the acharya-sampradaya culture inspired one famous disciple to appeal to his great guru in relation to their worshipable acharya.
