Prabhupada: In India all scriptures and great spiritual teachers, including Sankaracarya, an impersonalist, accept Krishna as the Supreme Lord. In the beginning of his commentary on the Bhagavad-gita, Sankaracarya says that Narayana is transcendental to this manifested and unmanifested creation, and in the same commentary he says that the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Narayana, is Krishna appearing as the son of Devaki and Vasudeva. Thus in this respect there is little difference of opinion about Krishna. Those who are authorities, be they personalists or impersonalists, are in agreement that Krishna is the Supreme Lord.
When Krishna was present on this planet, He proved by His activities and opulence that He is the Supreme Lord. If we are actually anxious to understand who and what the Supreme Lord is, all of the information is given in Vedic literatures. If we utilize whatever we have in our possession to understand God, Krishna will prove that He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. If we but accept this one fact, then all of our education is complete. It is fashionable to research to try to find out who is God, but this is not necessary. God is present, and He Himself says:
mattah parataram nanyat
kincid asti dhananjaya
mayi sarvam idam protam
sutre mani-gana iva
“O conqueror of wealth (Arjuna), there is no truth superior to Me. Everything rests upon Me, as pearls are strung on a thread.” (Bg. 7.7)
This information is not only given in Bhagavad-gita but in other scriptures as well, and it has been accepted from the very beginning by great acaryas (teachers) like Sankaracarya, Ramanujacarya, Madhvacarya, Lord Caitanya and many other stalwart authorities. Even at the present moment those who do not accept Krishna as the Supreme Lord are accepting the knowledge given by Krishna to Arjuna. So in this way they are accepting Krishna indirectly. If one accepts Bhagavad-gita as a great book of knowledge, he is also accepting Krishna. There is no doubt that the Supreme Absolute Truth is Krishna and that we have our eternal relationship with Him.
Our eternal relationship with God is sabhajana: God is great, and we are subordinate. He is the predominator, and we are the predominated. The duty of the subordinate is to please the predominator. Similarly, if we want to be happy, we must learn how to make Krishna happy. This is the process of Krishna consciousness.
But how is it to be understood that the Supreme Lord is satisfied by our service and labor? It is actually possible to perfect our service or occupational duty. Everyone has some service to perform according to his designations. He may be an Indian or American, Hindu, Muslim or Christian, man, woman, brahmana, ksatriya, vaisya, sudra or whatever—in any case he is meant to do some sort of work, and that work is his occupational duty. Perfection of duty can be tested by seeing whether the Supreme Lord is satisfied by its execution. The Supreme Lord’s satisfaction can be tested by the Lord’s representative, the spiritual master. Therefore it is important to seek out a real representative of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and work under him. If he is satisfied, then we should know that the Supreme Lord is also satisfied. That is explained by Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura:
yasya prasadad bhagavat-prasado
yasyaprasadan na gatih kuto ’pi
dhyayam stuvams tasya yasas tri-sandhyam
vande guroh sri-caranaravindam
“By the mercy of the spiritual master one is benedicted by the mercy of Krishna. Without the grace of the spiritual master no one can make any advancement. Therefore I should always remember the spiritual master. At least three times a day I should offer my respectful obeisances unto the lotus feet of my spiritual master.” (Sri Gurvastakam, Verse 8)
The spiritual master is the representative of the Supreme Lord. How does he become the representative? If one says that such and such an object is a pair of spectacles, and if he teaches his disciple in that way, there is no mistake as to the identity of the object. The spiritual master is he who has captured the words of a particular disciplic succession. In the case given, the key word is “spectacles”—that’s all. The spiritual master does not have to say anything beyond that. This is the qualification. Krishna says, “I am the Supreme,” and the spiritual master says, “Krishna is the Supreme.” It is not that to be a representative of Krishna or to be a spiritual master one has to have any extraordinary qualification. He simply has to carry the message from the authority as it is without any personal interpretation. As soon as there is some personal interpretation, the message is lost and the instructions become offensive. A person who interprets the scriptures according to his own whims should be immediately rejected.
Once Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu said, “You must at least have enough sense to test to find out who is a spiritual master and who is not.” For instance, if we want to purchase something, we must at least have some idea of what that thing is, otherwise we will be cheated. If we want to purchase a mango from the market, we must at least know what type of food a mango is and what it looks like. Similarly, we must have some preliminary knowledge of the qualifications for a bona fide spiritual master. Bhagavad-gita itself gives some information about the succession of spiritual masters. Lord Sri Krishna says:
imam vivasvate yogam
proktavan aham avyayam
vivasvan manave praha
manur iksvakave ’bravit
[Bg. 4.1]
evam parampara-praptam
imam rajarsayo viduh
sa kaleneha mahata
yogo nastah parantapa
sa evayam maya te ’dya
yogah proktah puratanah
bhakto ’si me sakha ceti
rahasyam hy etad uttamam
“I instructed this imperishable science of yoga to the sun-god Vivasvan, and Vivasvan instructed it to Manu, the father of mankind, and Manu in turn instructed it to Iksvaku. This supreme science was thus received through the chain of disciplic succession, and the saintly kings understood it in that way. But in course of time the succession was broken, and therefore the science as it is appears to be lost. That very ancient science of the relationship with the Supreme is today told by Me to you because you are My devotee as well as My friend; therefore, you can understand the transcendental mystery of this science.” (Bg. 4.1–3)
That original spiritual disciplic succession was broken, but now we can receive the same message by studying Bhagavad-gita.
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