Guarantees for Salvation

On June 19, 2023, I was speaking to a famous Vaishnava swami, who is now departed from the physical side of existence. He wanted to discuss the accusations which some of his living and dead disciples made about him, concerning his promise that if they adhered to his methods of spirituality, they would attain the spiritual world where his deity resided. This deity is Krishna of the Bhagavad Gita.

The Swami said this.

I give those guarantees on the basis of the Bhagavad Gita primarily, regarding what Krishna said there. Some part of the assurance is based on what was said by Lord Chaitanya.

When I reconsider the incidences, how many white-bodied persons came to me and were assured by me about this method of salvation, I see that I confidently made certain guarantees which were not serviced by providence, where these people who submitted to me did not get the result intended.

I indicated to them that if they followed the words of Krishna in my translation of Bhagavad Gita, they would definitely go to Krishna’s place, back to Godhead, as I popularized the assurance.

To consider this now there were other factors which needed to support the warranty. For instance.

• God would have to agree to do it.
• Nature (Maya) would have to agree to support parts of it
• My understanding of Krishna’s promises in Bhagavad Gita would have to be absolutely correct.
• The disciple would have to meet the standard to qualify under the guarantee, provided that the guarantee was as I issued it.

Any mishap in any of those conditions would result in failure of the guarantee. I was overconfident at the time. I did not think in any way that there could be a defect. I was assured by my authorities in the lineage in India. I was self-confident. I radiated that confidence. The disciples absorbed that. With myself and the disciples being saturated with confidence, I could not predict or know that there would be failure and not a single one would attain the salvation promised.

One other thing is that when I said that a disciple should surrender to Krishna, that was a mix of actions which included Krishna. It meant surrender to myself, first of all, because the disciples were not before a physical speaking Krishna. They were present with me. The idea that they should do as Krishna instructed really meant as I instructed, which in some circumstances may be at variance with what Krishna wanted.

One area where I had doubts about my instructions but where I was not self-critical, was the area of disciples being married. As a religious head, some disciples were married by me. Many of those marriage did not endure. My blessings to them, the official religious ceremonies with rituals, and deity services performed, did not prevent the divorces which followed.

This means that my blessings for marriage did not apply for any length of time, not for the lifetime of those two disciples. Nature did not support it. Krishna did not cause it not to dissolve in a short time.

This guru business is not a good thing. It is best not to be a guru, at least not in the way of having wholesale control of the disciple’s lives. One should advice someone and let that person work out the social details like marriage on their own. Otherwise, one will give a guarantee which Nature and God may not service, even though it was given in the name of God with infallible assurances, which in the long term become a farce.

And the final question is this.

Why did Krishna not support the promises guaranteed?

The answer is that the promise described by me was flawed. The whole incidence is to be regretted. I am sorry about it. Unfortunately, I cannot reverse it. It is now part of the history.