[Spoken by Srila Gurudeva on July 7th, 1997, in Holland, published as part of the Bhakta Bandhav Anthology, Volume 21]
Srila Gurudeva: One person asked me, “What is the significance of taking initiation from any guru? If we are thinking, ‘He is my guru’, only this and not taking initiation, nothing, and chanting and remembering Krsna, what harm is there?” I said that there is so much harm. Without relation, Krsna will not hear anything.
If you have any relation with any lady, like husband and wife, and you are married to them, then the husband may come and spend lakhs and lakhs dollars for his wife. But if there is no connection, no relation, like to a street woman, he will not sacrifice all these things. A wife for her husband can do anything if there is a relationship. If there is a relation between the son and the father, mother, and son, then we can serve that person, each other, like that relation. If we are married, then we have a relationship of husband and wife. A husband cannot treat his wife like a sister, mother, or daughter. Can he? Never. Because he has a certain relation with that woman. So, we should have a relation with Gurudeva. How will this relationship come? How will it come?
There must be some real relation. If you are thinking, “She is my mother,” this will not do. This is only imagination. Imagination will not do. Only thinking will not do. A proper marriage should be done or you should have come from the womb of any woman, then she is your mother really. Then she will do so many things for you in supporting and nourishing you and she can do everything for the child if the child has come from her womb. This is called relation. If you don’t have a real relationship with Gurudeva and you are not feeling any relation to Krsna, it is not pure bhakti. There is no pure relation. You cannot do anything, you cannot advance. You must come in the process. If you are really initiated by that person, then a relationship will surely come. There must be some process. By this process of initiation from any living person.
You are thinking, “Nityananda Prabhu is my Gurudeva, so I will not accept any other guru. I will follow Nityananda Prabhu.” You cannot do this because there is no relation really. When we will accept initiation from a very bonafide guru, then we can think like this, siksa-guru, Nityananda Prabhu, Mahaprabhu, Krsna, Srimati Radhika, then real relationship may come. We should adopt all these processes. Don’t neglect these things. If you are doing ekantika-bhakti, one-pointed bhakti, if you are not following the orders of Veda, Sruti, Smrti, pancaratra, agama, nigama, Bhagavad-gita, and Ramayana, but doing ekantika-bhakti, it will make some problem.
sruti-smrti-puranadi-
pancaratra-vidhim vina
aikantiki harer bhaktir
utpatayaiva kalpate
-Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu 1.2.101
[Although engaged in single-minded devotion to Lord Hari, if one transgresses the regulations mentioned in the sruti, smrti, Puranas, and the Narada-pancaratra, undesired qualities (anarthas) are produced. On the other hand, overzealous concern for the rules and regulations of bhakti, which disregards the mood and injunctions of the scriptures, simply becomes a disturbance to society.]
It will only cause unnecessary disturbance. We should try to follow all scriptures like Veda, Upanisad, and Srimad Bhagavatam. We cannot progress an inch in devotional life without following these things. You cannot be humble like the Pandavas.