ACTUAL AND NAME SAKE VAISHNAVAS

All Glories to HDG Srila Bhakti Promode Puri Goswami  Maharaja

All Glories to HDG SRILA Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Goswami Prabhupada

Two types of people worship Krishna with the use of Krishna mantra. In order to understand the difference between the two we have to understand the meaning of the word pancopasana worship. The ultimate goal of this type of worship is to attain the undifferentiated Brahman. These category of worshippers understanding the difficulty of worshipping Brahman without form  formulate a speculative way of worship to purify their mind at the start. The scholar ,Vidaranya has tactfully expressed this as sadhaka kamanam hitaarthaya brahman rupakalpena. Although their worship is within the modes of nature ,it is the belief of these votaries that they will be able to traverse the modes of nature to attain knowledge of Brahman in this way. At this juncture ,those even without motive at the final stage will come to the platform of no obvious difference between the worshipper ,object of worship and the method used. Those votaries in the mode of goodness worship Vishnu .Goodness and passion are of the devotees of Sungod, those in goodness and mixed ignorance worship Ganapati. Those devotees in the mood of ignorance and passion are devotees of the Goddess Sakti, while those in the mode of ignorance generally worship Siva. All of them with their specific mantras for their worshippable deity ultimately strive to attain the platform of Brahman. All other types of demigods and goddesses are under the fold of this Pancopasana worship. Here the worship of Vishnu is impersonal, these worshippers believe that this material world is false while Brahman comes under the illusion of the material energy transforms the ego that he is just a living entity. By gradual worship of Vishnu with form, the illusory energy will be removed and one will come back to the position of Brahman. Hence they worship all the deities accordingly and amongst them some are termed as Vaishnavas by them. The conclusion of the pure Vaishnavas are independent of all these concepts. They understand that the Lord has an eternal, transcendental form. Factually, though the Vedas declare that the Lord has no eyes, no hands ,no legs  or form as similar to the material limbs and  form humans possess  but it does not mean that the Lord is formless as the impersonalists declare. For their way of seeking knowledge is by the inductive or ascending process (Aroha)They are forgetting that the (Avaroha )or deductive process of gaining knowledge which is praised in the Vedas as the famous verse below:

nayatma pravachanena labhya na medhaya va bahuna srutenaa

yamevasa vrnute tena labhyas   atma vrnute tanum svam  Katha Upanishad

Meaning: to ignore the method of implicit obedience to the previous realized souls and to proceed by one's own inductive methods will not give any one even a scholar  any actual spiritual gain. Only one under the Mayavada philosophy will compare Lord Vishnu with other demigods by not recognizing them as simply the paraphernalia of God or to worship the demigods separately as the Supreme Lord. On the contrary, the pure Vaishnavas with devotional service worship the different eternal forms of the Lord as Narayana, Nrshingha ,Rama, and with their specific mantras attain to the eternal service of the Lord in that form. Their goal and fruit is devotion to Lord Krishna. The living entities are the divine spark of the transcendental whole but they can never be the whole. The Lord is great and the master of the living entity. The living entity is the eternal servant of the Lord. Innumerable living entities conditioned by their mind ,body and intelligence become averse to the Lord. In order to remove this false identification if these conditioned souls take to the shelter of the pure devotee ,free from Mayavada philosophy  and perform devotional service in the mood of servitor then they can be freed from effects of such conditioning. Just because one is worshipping the form of Nrshingha or Narayana but in the mood of impersonalism then there is no question of being labelled as Vaishnava. Even in the Panchopasana worship there is different groups as the Saura, Ganapatya  ,Sakta ,Vaishnava or Saiva. There are many devotees who though hearts of hearts do not nourish this impersonal philosophy but by wrong association  but by the acceptance of an impersonal guru fall down from their devotional  platform. They are unfortunate because even having the devotional mood but by accepting a Mayavada guru they had fallen from the highest path. Still, the compassionate Vaishnavas travel around trying to rouse this waylaid devotees back to the pure Vaishnava doctrine. Let us all take the dust of such magnanimous devotees who guide the living entities away from the  dark path of impersonal doctrines and guide them to the path of the highest goal of human life which is devotion to God, over the other secondary goals of life. Similarly, Prahlad Maharaj has instructed us in the Bhagavatam by this verse :

Naisam matis tavadurukramanghrim  spsatya yad upgama yad artha 

mahiyasm padorajabhishekam niskinchinam na vrnite yavat

Similarly in the fifth canto by Bharat Maharaj

Rahagunana tat tapas na yati na cejyaya na chadassa naiva jala agnir  surya bina mahat pada rajo abhisekham

These verses mention that there is no other way to obtain the highest destination in spiritual life except by taking the lotus feet of the self -realized soul. What do we mean by a great soul? He who is free from all  desires who does not attempt for material boons, but only desiring to serve the Supreme Lord. He who has no inclination for enjoying the four common goals of life as religion ,wealth ,lusty desires and liberation. He is always engaged in favorable devotional service to enhance his devotion .To beg from one's disciples or others to maintain one's enjoying propensities can never be regarded as a great soul and taking shelter of such conditioned souls is is useless as by the blind leading the blind. The shelter of the lotus feet of an elevated devotee can never be unproductive. Those who thought you as hard and aggressive will find you now mild and soft spoken. There is nothing else necessary except implicit obedience to the feet of the spiritual preceptor. As the Geeta verse sums up :

tad viddhi paripatena paripresenena sevaya.