Page 29 - SBV (English)

Preface xxvii

understand devotees. If they could understand they would become renounced
like the devotees—but that they do not want.”
Even the seeming sickness and other apparent adversities undergone by
mahä-bhägavatas must be accepted as lélä and not misconstrued as equivalent
to the karmic sufferings of conditioned souls. As Çréla Sarasvaté Öhäkura often
quoted:

yata dekha vaiñëavera vyavahära duùkha
niçcaya jäniha sei paränanda-sukha
viñaya-madändha saba kichui nä jäne
vidyä-made dhana-made vaiñëava nä cine
Be convinced that distress seen in a Vaiñëava is actually the happiness
of spiritual bliss. Persons blind and intoxicated with sense pleasures
know nothing of this. In the pride of knowledge and wealth they fail
to recognize a Vaiñëava. (Cb 2.9.240–41)
And he explained:

Pure devotees are never forced to experience the fruits of their
karma. All their pastimes, such as taking birth, are enacted
simply by the Lord’s will. But it is often seen that devotees
appear in low-class families, or to ordinary eyes seem like fools
or to be afflicted with disease. There is a great purpose behind
*
this: if people were to detect that the Lord’s devotees appear
only in high-class families and are always strong, healthy, and
well educated according to material calculation, they would
become discouraged. 5
As evidenced from their mutual correspondence, the compilers of Sarasvaté-
jayaçré took much care to describe their gurudeva in a manner meant to prevent
readers from being influenced by martya-buddhi, the misunderstanding that a
transcendentally situated devotee is subject to the defects of ordinary mortals.
Indeed, even to describe Çréla Bhaktisiddhänta Sarasvaté as a lionlike guru or
çaktyäveça-avatära, while not incorrect, is incomplete. As he himself revealed, the
guru is to be considered either a confidante (priya-sakhé) of Çrématé Rädhäräëé
or a manifested representation of Çréla Nityänanda Prabhu. Certain disciples of
6
Çréla Bhaktisiddhänta Sarasvaté Öhäkura detected that in the eternal pastimes

* In Vedic understanding, the concept of low birth has an import quite different from
that of the politely democratic “lower class” of standard English usage. For further
explanation, see vol. 2, pp. 112–13.