Spiritual Counselor System 

Part 1

by Vrndavan Nandini

Service to the Vaisnavas

Vaisnavism has been manifested in its purest and most wonderful form through the love and teachings of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and His associates. The most beautiful aspect of Lord Caitanya pastimes is the loving interaction between Him and His devotees, and among the devotees themselves. Although He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Caitanya played the role of the devotee just to teach us how to conduct our lives as devotees. Lord Caitanya personally served His devotees, and this increased the devotees' desire to serve Him and serve each other. If the Lord sees that His devotees are so exalted that He desired to serve them, how should we then see the devotees and desire to serve them? (Please click 'read more')

The essence of Varnashrama Dharma

To learn how to be the servant of the servant of the Vaisnavas. This is the basic spirit of the scientific process of daivi-varnasrama-dharma. The conclusion of varnasrama is Lord Caitanya's sloka, "I am not a brahmana, ksatriya, vaisya, or sudra. Nor am I a brahmacari, grihastha, vanaprastha, or sannyasi these are all temporary designations my only true identity is to be the servant of the servant of the servant of the Lord of the gopis, Lord Krishna. This is the conclusion. This is the spirit. He taught us the importance of following the principles of varnasrama, but understanding that the goal is to utilize these different positions to express our devotion to Krishna. Daivi-varnasrama-dharma in essence is to educate people according to their nature and propensity to utilize their talents in the service of God to develop pure love of God. In the society of devotees all the different segments should respect one another, should harmonize with one another, understanding that we need to help each other to purify the heart and to become Krishna conscious. 

Caring for every devotee

How to apply? For a society to be strong, all members must know their duties, and everyone should care for each other. Care means personal attention in serving each devotee. This is the one of the greatest needs of our society. We are preaching the most personal theology in the world: Krishna is a person and every living being is also a person. Everyone has an eternal relationship with God; every one has an eternal relationship with His part and parcels. As Krishna says: You cannot show love for Me unless you show love for My devotees, and even show love to those who forgot that they are My devotees. Sometimes in our society we become so highly philosophical that we forget that we are people. 
 
 
 
 

The emergency

In the history of the Hare Krishna Movement it is very, very rare that someone leaves the society because he finds a higher philosophy: there is no higher philosophy. Srila Prabhupada gave us the topmost, most complete philosophy and the most perfect and pure process to follow. Why then people leave this movement? Mostly because they feel not cared for by the Vaisnava society. They feel treated impersonally. They feel that their material and emotional needs are not being fulfilled and they discontinue the spiritual practices. When devotees become dissatisfied, some of them leave the society to go into the world just to try to get a lot of money. Others go for some New Age so-called religious ideas, where people said: You are very nice. You are very nice. And the devotee thinks, At least they say that I am nice. Others go to some other branch of Vaisnavism because they feel: At least these people will care about me. But if the devotees were properly cared for in the Hare Krishna Movement, practically no one would ever want to leave. And that is why Srila Prabhupada said that the second half of his mission was to establish the varnasrama-dharma society, to care for devotees throughout their entire lives, so that they can be happy in Krishna consciousness, serving according to their propensity.