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Sometime in the early 1980's Sripada Goswami Maharaja, then Dheera Krishna Swami, came to my attention, and that of many of my Godbrothers and Godsisters serving in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), as a result of his exuberant preaching about Srila Sridhara Maharaja, one of the Godbrothers of our guru, Srila Bhakti Vedanta Swami Maharaja.

Srila Swami Maharaja, the founder Acharya of ISKCON, had previously taken some steps to keep his disciples segregated from his Godbrothers lest they become confused by their differences of opinion, theological conception or behavior, especially those of his Godbrother Acharyas. As a result, Goswami Maharaja's introduction of Srila Sridhara Maharaja as a spiritual authority into the almost sterile ISKCON environment, produced a shock such as one might experience when suddenly awakened from a deep sleep.

There is a saying, "You can't wake a man who is pretending to be asleep." Whether not fully awake, or pretending to be asleep, most of the devotees could not grasp the significance or tremendous value of the divine instructions being offered by this Acharya Godbrother of their guru even though Srila Swami Maharaja had personally pointed us to him. For example:

"...because you are my disciple and I think, a sincere soul, it is my duty to refer you to someone who is competent to act as siksha guru.... For spiritual advancement of life, we must go to one who is actually practicing spiritual life;... So if you are actually serious to take instructions from a siksa guru, I can refer you to one who is most highly competent of all my god-brothers. This is B.R. Sridhara Maharaja, whom I consider to be even my siksa guru, so what to speak of the benefit that you can have from his association." —Letter -- Los Angeles 31 January, 1969

Those of us who accepted this direction of Srila Swami Maharaja, approached Srila Sridhara Maharaja as our siksha guru. He then challenged us to consider which is of higher value, "Society consciousness or God consciousness".

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krsna says, "It is better to die while performing one's own duty than to try to do another's duty." That is one stage of understanding: the relative consideration. The absolute consideration is also given in the Bhagavad Gita: sarvadharman parityaja mam ekam saranam vraja. Krsna says, "Give up everything. Come to me directly." This is the revolutionary way. This is absolute. And this is relative: "Stick to your own clan. Don't leave them." That is the national conception. There is nation consciousness and God consciousness; society consciousness and God consciousness. God consciousness is absolute. If society consciousness hinders the development of God consciousness, it should be left behind. —Sri Guru & His Grace, Chap. 5.

Later, the leadership of ISKCON, the GBC, determined we must make a choice, "Leave Srila Sridhara Maharaja, or leave ISKCON."

Some thought, "My service to Swami Maharaja can only be done within the society (ISKCON)", and remained there.

Others, such as myself, found the substance of Krishna Consciousness, the substance Srila Swami Maharaja represented, the Divinity we came to serve, to be more fully and perfectly present in the person of Srila Sridhara Maharaja than in ISKCON or the GBC. We remained with him, following this advice:

"We are after a living mantra, and wherever we can trace the living tendency for a higher type of devotional service, we shall find that there is our guru. One who has that sort of vision awakened will be able to recognize the guru wherever he may appear." —Sri Guru & His Grace, Chap. 3

"So, the very gist of the guru parampara, the disciplic succession, is siksa, the spiritual teaching, and wherever it is to be traced, there is guru. One who has the transcendental eye, the divine eye, will recognize the guru wherever he appears. One who possesses knowledge of absolute divine love in purity - he is guru. Otherwise the guru parampara is only a body parampara: a succession of bodies. Then the caste brahmanas, the caste goswamis, will continue with their trade, because body after body, they are getting the mantra. But their mantra is dead. We are after a living mantra, and wherever we can trace the living tendency for a higher type of devotional service, we shall find that there is our guru. One who has that sort of vision awakened will be able to recognize the guru wherever he may appear." —Sri Guru & His Grace, Chap. 3.

So, the absolute and the relative are two different classes of interest. And we find more importance in the absolute interest. We must be sincere to our own creed. Sometimes we have to leave our paraphernalia if it does not suit us. So also, even in the conception of purity of the Krsna consciousness movement, in the Vaisnava creed, there is purity and form. The form is necessary to help me in a general way to maintain my present position. At the same time, my conception of the higher ideal will always goad me to advance, to go forward, and wherever I go, I must follow the greater model, the greater ideal. Spiritual life is progressive, not stagnant. —Sri Guru & His Grace, Chap. 5.

It is not that the form, or the society, or the organization has no value. They have their value, to give support, to help the pursuit of the substance. It is only when a divergence of interest between the form and the substance comes to his attention that it becomes incumbent upon the sincere seeker to carefully analyze his position, and his own sincerity. He must be true to himself and not simply choose the easy path, whichever it may be.

"Now, things have come in such a way that we have to scrutinize ourselves in every position. We have to analyze ourselves. Atma-samiksha, self-analysis has begun. We are under trial. What we received from our spiritual master, in what way have we received it? Properly, or only showingly? The time has come to purify us, to test whether we are real students, real disciples, or his disciples only in face and confession. What is the position of a real disciple? If we live in the society, what is the depth of our creed? In what attitude have we accepted his teachings? How deep-rooted is it within us? The fire has come to test whether we can stand. Is our acceptance real? Or is it a sham, an imitation? This fire will prove that." —Sri Guru & His Grace, Chap. 5.

The choice, and the responsibility for it, is always with the seeker of Krishna Consciousness.

For me the choice was one of necessity. I felt the spiritual guidance of my siksha guru, Srila Sridhara Maharaja was indispensable. I could not avoid that even if it meant losing the company, and perhaps friendship, of many Godbrothers and Godsisters.

I sought and received sannyasa from His Divine Grace Srila Sridhara Maharaja (Nov. '81) and returned to ISKCON expecting to pursue my new role as a sannyasi preacher, enlivened with many concepts gleaned from my association with Srila Sridhara Maharaja during my previous two months stay with him. My GBC's (Governing Body Commission[ers]), Prabhu Aitreya Rshi and Jaya Tirtha Maharaja, thought it best to send me instead to stay with Dheera Krishna Maharaja at his newly formed "Krishna Consciousness Movement" center on 13th. Street in San Jose, California.

They must have seen this center as a sort of neutral zone, like Switzerland. KCM (the Krishna Consciousness Movement) seemed to exist in some sort of tatastha (marginal) state, sometimes ISKCON, sometimes not. While it had been advertised as an ISKCON center in "Back to Godhead" magazine,*

it was soon deleted from their list of centers by those intent on isolating ISKCON from the preaching of Dheera Krishna Maharaja and the influence of Srila Sridhara Maharaja.

It should be obvious now, almost 30 years later, that Truth has His way of enriching those who seek Him, even when external forces attempt to obstruct the transaction. Srila Sridhara Maharaja's uniquely expressed and vibrant spiritual precepts, in the line of Sri Chaitanya Saraswati, have found their way, not only into ISKCON, but the fabric of every organization following in the line of Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakura. They found their fullest expression in His Divine Grace Srila Bhakti Sundara Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaja, but even in their partial form, they are enriching the line of spiritual thought throughout the Gaudiya Vaishnava community and providing impetus to the sincere seekers to pursue their quest for the Absolute Truth as far as they are able.

Although previously acquainted with His Holiness Dheera Krishna Maharaja as Dheera Krishna das brahmacari, I was unfamiliar with his broad knowledge of the scriptures. While staying with him for several weeks in San Jose he composed the paper we present here. Reading the paper and living with him during those weeks, it became apparent that he not only had a deep background in the shastras but also knew, and was well known by, many, if not all, of the ISKCON GBC's and other leaders. and other leaders. One of them was Jaya Tirtha Maharaja, who was very favorably disposed to the preaching of Srila Sridhara Maharaja and, in an effort to strengthen the weakening bonds between the ISKCON GBC (which had been going to Srila Sridhara Maharaja for spiritual guidance as they had been directed to do by Srila Swami Maharaja) and Srila Sridhara Maharaja, encouraged Dheera Krishna Maharaja to write a paper for him to present to each of the GBC's at an upcoming North American GBC Meeting in Dallas, Texas.

Sripada Goswami Maharaja composed the paper that follows, which outlines the intimate and affectionate transcendental relationship not only between one devotee and another, Godbrothers of the same guru, but between two of the most prominent Acharyas in our sampradaya. The paper found its way into the hands of not only the GBC, but many of those interested in the topics presented therein.

I believe the current reader will find many helpful instructions to guide him through the inevitable difficulties and challenges that are sure to present themselves in the face of the disappearance of our Gurudeva, His Divine Grace Srila Govinda Maharaja, just as they helped so many after the passing of Srila Bhakti Vedanta Swami Maharaja.

The paper, when broadly circulated among the disciples and followers of Srila A.C. Bhakti Vedanta Swami Maharaja, became known as the "17 Page Paper", the title we are using here. Later on, it also served as the basis for a formal and beautifully produced publication by Sripada Goswami Maharaja via his Guardian of Devotion Press, titled The Guardian of Devotion - A Chronicle of a Transcendental Relationship.

The copy of the "17 Page Paper" we present here is my personal copy, read and referred to many times by me as is evidenced by the underlined text.

You'll also notice many typos, misplaced commas and so forth. Sripada Goswami Maharaja did not have a personal computer. That would not come for another two years. The work was all done on an IBM Selectric typewriter (as I remember, acquired through IBM's generous lease/purchase plan), one of his prized possessions, perhaps second only to the tape recorders he used for recording the talks of Srila Sridhara Maharaja and ranking just above his English Dictionary. In another age Goswami Maharaja would have been known as "a man of letters", an intellectual, but with a sharply artistic bent. I came to regard him as shastra nipuna, one who is expert in drawing out the meaning of the scriptures, as he always seemed to home in on the most vital points of Srila Sridhara Maharaja's talks.

There were no archives of Srila Sridhara Maharaja's transcripts, neatly stored on a hard drive, ready to be retrieved by a simple global search. The digital age was still a few years off. Every word, every comma and space, was carefully and painstakingly produced as a labor of love to glorify and preserve for posterity, as we know now, the transcendental relationship between his two Gurus, Srila Swami Maharaja and Srila Sridhara Maharaja.

Srila Sridhara Maharaja saw Dheera Krishna Swami as, "bold bordering on reckless". One who was eager to discover the yet to be revealed truths of Krishna Consciousness, and finding them, was not afraid to speak truth to power. Srila Sridhara Maharaja happily spoke with all of us, patiently offering his thoughtful answers to question after question. Dheera Krishna Maharaja had many questions. Some of a very practical nature, most referring to some verse from the shastras that piqued his interest or required further explanation. Some, I suspect, just to hear a new, fresh and unique perspective that only Srila Sridhara Maharaja could provide.

Srila Sridhara Maharaja saw in Dheera Krishna Swami someone who could carry his preaching to the West. Srila Saraswati Thakura had requested Srila Sridhara Maharaja to go to the West for preaching. Srila Sridhara Maharaja "offered a modest objection", that he did not feel himself fit, since it was difficult for him to "catch the intonation" of the English speakers. Other preachers were sent instead, but now, in Dheera Krishna Maharaja, Srila Sridhara Maharaja saw someone who could bring the West to him.

After writing the "17 Page Paper," and delivering it to the GBC, Dheera Krishna Maharaja (as I remember) took it with him to Navadwipa and read it to Srila Sridhara Maharaja, with Srila Govinda Maharaja also listening attentively. When finished, Srila Sridhara Maharaja said "Today we have heard a very nice class from Dheera Krishna Maharaja."

I think Goswami Maharaja could not have known, and it would not have occurred to him to consider it at the time, the impact this paper would have on the worldwide community of devotees of Srila Swami Maharaja. But it did. It had a tremendous effect as it was "xeroxed" over and over again by devotees in order to pass it on from one friend to another. While its sweetness was relished by many, it produced an acrid taste on the palate of those fearful of losing their power, position or control to the seductive beauty of the nectarean Gaudiya Vaishnava siddhanta that flowed from the mouth of Srila Sridhara Maharaja like an endless fountain of rasa (concentrated transcendental liquid sweetness).

Before presenting the paper to the ISKCON GBC, Sripada Dheera Krishna Maharaja asked His Holiness Sripada Jayadwaita Maharaja, Senior Editor of "Back to Godhead", and highly regarded for his knowledge of the shastras, to go over it carefully to see if there were any flaws. To quote Sripada Goswami Maharaja, "You know I want my arguments to be unassailable -- I asked Jayadvaita Mj. to preview the '17 page paper' to assess its flaws, his response, 'it is philosophically unimpeachable.'" It was so then, it is now.

In discussions with my Godbrothers, and in my preaching over the course of many years, I used quotations from the "17 Page Paper" again and again to answer many philosophical and practical questions. I also read it repeatedly for my own edification and enlivenment. For the last several days I have been reading from it for our morning classes here in our New Jersey Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math. I pray it will offer as much nourishment and relief for today's reader as it has for me.

One final note regarding my underlining of text. I was reluctant at first to reproduce it on our website, and we withheld it for many years for the reason that I did not want to bias or influence the reader. For better or worse, it is the only copy we have. As a judge might admonish a jury to "disregard that testimony," I could ask you to disregard my markings. I wouldn't expect either request to be implemented.

I pray to the lotus feet of His Divine Grace Srila Bhakti Sundara Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaja, that he may be pleased with this humble attempt to serve his disciples, followers and friends.

A humble servant to the servants of the Lord,

Swami B.K. Giri

*1982 Vol.17 No.2-3