Srila Gurudeva: Sometimes Gurudeva tells anyone, “Oh, you are very good, very qualified.” Then that devotee becomes so energetic. But sometimes Guru takes and twists his ears and then that devotee becomes hopeless. “What to do? I will go back to my father and mother and my wife again.” Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura has given all these things in detail in his Madhurya-kadambini and he is our siksa-guru.
After this, there are so many things. Praise will come and you will not be able to tolerate that. So many ladies, very beautiful, beautiful ladies will come. Like the one who went to Haridasa Thakura. They will come automatically and they will show that they are very expert in bhakti. But they will enter in your life and they will become like an elephant. They will enter like a needle and become like an elephant and destroy everything.
It is for both, it is the same for ladies. Any man will come and destroy everything. We can see that Caitanya Mahaprabhu punished Chota Haridasa for a very little thing, just to show His disciples the danger of all these things. This is anisthtita-bhakti. Praise will come. Automatically money will come.
So many worldly things like friends, computers, so many things will come automatically. Everything will come automatically and thousands of disciples will come. If we are absorbed in all these things, this is an anartha. We should not be involved in all these things. After giving up all these things, then real bhakti, nisthtita-bhakti will come. Srimad-Bhagavatam has said:
nasta-prayesv abhadresu
nityam bhagavata-sevaya
bhagavaty uttama-sloke
bhaktir bhavati naisthiki
Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.2.18
[By regular attendance in classes on the Bhagavatam and by rendering of service to the pure devotee, all that is troublesome to the heart is almost completely destroyed, and loving service unto the Personality of Godhead, who is praised with transcendental songs, is established as an irrevocable fact.]
Naisthiki means that now there is no doubt. Steadiness comes and he has so much faith in his Gurudeva. His faith is not shaking like pendulum here and there. Then bhakti comes. Naisthiki. But, knowingly you will have to do all these things. These activities of bhakti are not coming automatically. You will do all these things with your intelligence, thinking, “This is good and this is bad.” But bhakti will come, little by little. Then when nistha will be ripened, matured, then ruci will come.
[Spoken by Srila Gurudeva on April 28th, 1998, France, published as part of the Bhakta Bandhav Anthology, Volume 27]
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