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Question: Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu took initiation and accepted Śrīla Īśvara Purī as His spiritual master, despite being the Lord Himself. So what can we gather from this about the importance of accepting a spiritual master?

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Jayapatākā Swami: So, because the Lord took a spiritual master, although He doesn’t need one, He is the spiritual master of everyone, but He took – whatever great men do, common men follow – so He did it to show example. And also, the Padma Purāṇa states that if you don’t receive the mantra from one of the four bonafide, disciplic successions, then your mantra will not bear fruit. Mantra nisphalataha! Fruitless! So Lord Caitanya took His initiation in the Brahmā Madhva sampradāya. Brahmā, Lakṣmī, the Four Kumāras and Lord Śiva, they established the four Vaiṣṇava paramparās.  ISKCON is in the Brahmā sampradāya. Of course, Lord Caitanya came, and He united all the sampradāyas. So in the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava sampradāya we see different aspects of the different Vaiṣṇava paramparās. Now we want to accept a spiritual master, and that was the example that Lord Caitanya showed. In the Kṛṣṇa Book, when Kṛṣṇa talks to Sudāmā vipra, He talks about dīkṣā guru, śikṣā guru. One may have one dīkṣā guru and may have many śikṣā gurus.
27-June-2021 Sridham Mayapur, India